Forged
by Shadow Dragon
Summary: Why is Harry so special? Why wasn’t Sirius given a trial? Why did Peter betray them all? Harry and his friends race to answer these questions in an action-packed tale where nothing is real, secrets can kill, & the truth may be the greatest secret of all
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I own nothing. JKR rules all, and all of this is based off of characters and situations created by her and later exported by Bloomsbury and Warner Bros. 

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I'm trying to be someone else today

I'm fooling everyone

But me this way…

Insane, by Sugarcult

Prologue: An Unmentionable Dilemma

As though unaware that the magical world was celebrating with happy toasts and abundant feasts, the house on the end of Cairn Street in Hogsmeade stood silent. It was a funny little shack, which definitely suited the funny little wizard that lived inside. Townspeople about Hogsmeade called thin, gangling Taurus "Tuck" Crockford a bit eccentric even for a wizard. For one thing, nobody knew quite what he did, although he appeared to have _some_ sort of job. He left his house every morning promptly at eight and was not known to return until the stars shone bright over the dimmed lanterns. Sometimes, but very rarely, he had visitors, and they were usually recognised Unspeakables. But Tuck Crockford wasn't registered as an Unspeakable, was he?

It was a mystery that kept the citizens of Hogsmeade on their toes when the main gossip topics had died down and the boring lull had set in. Shopkeepers would usually gather at the Hog's Head over a pint of the local brew, and speculate on what exactly it was that took up all of Tuck Crockford's days. Lately, with Voldemort at the peak of his empire, the strange gentleman was all but a ghost in the eyes of the townspeople.

And with the events of the past forty-eight hours, it looked as though it would be a long time before Tuck Crockford came up as a topic of gossip.

Lying in his sleigh bed now, Tuck was content not to mind, for he had other things to think about. Urgent, secret things that were only hinted at, even in the darkest, farthest alley. For Taurus Crockford was not an Unspeakable anymore.

He was an Unmentionable.

Although he was taller than most, with a lanky sort of air about his thin bones, Tuck had the amazing ability to slip from one's notice and appear as just another passing stranger on the Underground. Perhaps he appeared to most as one of those irritating people that appears as though they know more than they will ever let on. He was a genial fellow at all times except very early in the morning, and was well-liked in the Department of Conspiracies (which was the most guarded secret of the Department of Mysteries). Of course, there were only six people in the Department of Conspiracies altogether, and most of them had been friends since the Hogwarts days. Friends or not, they were always the slightest bit suspicious of each other.

The sudden clatter of dishes downstairs told Tuck that his wards had been breached yet again, but he didn't move. For one moment, the world could go on without him. 

"TUCK! Get your lazy rump in gear!"

Okay, so maybe the world could only go on without him for exactly thirty-two seconds.

Knowing that his moment of rest had been too good to be true anyway, Tuck unfolded his long frame from the bed and threw a robe on over his pyjamas, which looked suspiciously like his clothing from the day before. He didn't even want to know how his hair looked—he didn't think he'd had time to so much as run a comb through it for at least thirty-six hours. Sighing irritably, he pushed it down and headed downstairs to the smell of coffee and eggs. Somebody was preparing a full English breakfast, and judging from the pangs in his stomach, he needed it.

"Oh, good, there you are."

Tuck stood for a moment and surveyed the scene taking place in his normally-empty kitchen. Hugh Filihurst, another Unmentionable, was standing over the stove and humming mildly to himself as he prepared the eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, tomatoes, and, oddly enough, pickled cucumbers. Foodstuffs flew about the kitchen in a furious whirl, the pears on the counter tap-danced to the rhythm of Hugh's humming. Although Tuck wanted to demand why the odd little wizard was humming, he turned instead to the regal wizard sitting at his breakfast table, and the person that had addressed him. "Hullo, Don," he said through a yawn. "I trust you slept well."

"Not a wink, Tuck, not a wink." Don Kempworth poured another cup of coffee and passed that to Tuck, who yawned his thanks. He sniffed the coffee before taking a drink. "I've just in from the site of attack, and we've got a whole day of analysis ahead. Some _very_ interesting findings."

Although Tuck felt like putting his head on the table and going back to sleep for another good three days, he nodded and sipped his coffee. Hugh continued to hum, completely oblivious to his co-workers' presence. "Anything in the paper?"

"The scores from yesterday's Quidditch matches, and a lot more on the celebration that's taken our civilisation by storm," Don offered, holding up _The Daily Prophet_. The cover was flashing a large picture of a gravestone with "You-Know-Who" written on it, and the headline promised, "Harry Potter Saves All—More on The Boy-Who-Lived!"

"Clueless," Tuck muttered. "Absolutely clueless!"

Hugh shuffled over to the table, carrying three plates and smiling idly. "How can you possibly grin at a time like this?" Tuck demanded crossly, taking his plate from his co-worker with a nod despite his harsh words. He twisted a ring on his finger as he glared. "And I don't even want to know how you bribed Uwila to get through the wards. I've kept them specifically spelled to keep you out!"

Hugh, as short as Tuck was tall, just gave him a grin, showing every flashy white tooth. "You've got too much of a soft spot for that owl, but she's intent on spilling all of your secrets, if you must know." They made for an odd party of three sitting there at Tuck's table, but nobody cared enough to comment. Three tired men, whose age had sprung upon them in the past two days, in rumpled robes, looking far too tired. "And I'm grinning because Voldemort's finally gone! Our plan worked!"

Don glowered Hugh into silence. "It did _not_ work! There was no body there, confirming Voldemort's death! He may be weakened, but it was supposed to _kill_ him, not send him into the…" He trailed off and shook his head, still scowling. "If anything, our plan backfired. Congratulations, gentlemen, we messed up."

Tuck rolled his eyes heavenward. "If this isn't a great topic to discuss over breakfast, I don't know what is," he muttered, feeling like a sullen adolescent once again. Intent on getting as much breakfast into his empty gullet as possible before they were called off on another one of Don's wild goose-chases, he tucked an entire piece of buttered toast into his mouth. Swallowing, he turned to Don. "Look, Don, did you find any evidence that—"

"Oh, bundles of evidence. We're up to our necks in evidence. However, the fact remains that _it didn't work_! It was supposed to be eliminated—along with Voldemort! Instead, it blew up the house!" Don slammed one fist on the table, but his dining companions did not jump. They were far too aware of his temperament not to know that the punch had been coming. From the briefcase that never seemed to leave his side, Don withdrew a series of parchments covered in spidery handwriting. "We had wands recording when it happened—"

"Finally, some good news," Tuck interrupted with his usual mutter. "Look, Don, there's no reason we should look at that today. We can do the analysis tomorrow, and you really should get some rest after we go into London. You and Sheila need to be strong—"

Hugh tucked a tomato into his mouth and talked around that. "Besides," he commented, "it's no use burying yourself in work to help you forget James."

Tuck glared at his co-worker, who could have been beaten by a sledge hammer in the subtlety arena. "I have half a mind to put a silencing charm on you and save Don the trouble." As Tuck was never a violent wizard by choice, one knew to be quiet when his voice dropped to a low whisper. Hugh, however, had been ignorant of that fact for several years, which was probably why his nose didn't sit quite straight and his eyesight seemed to be going bad. "Look, Don, I know he's not very tactful, but he's right. You're running yourself to the ground, and James's funeral is in two days. It's not healthy."

"There's still a mystery to be solved!" Don protested.

"And your brain will be far too exhausted to understand _anything_ if you keep this up!" Tuck snapped, spearing one of the eggs and mopping up the mess with his toast. "Look, Don, Sheila must be worried—I doubt you've been home since it happened. We'll check about London after you check in at home, like we planned last night, to see if Sirius ever checked in. He must have survived Voldemort's torture, because he was coherent enough to lend Rubeus Hagrid that blasted motorbike of his yesterday morning." 

"Voldemort's torture?" Hugh demanded, momentarily forgetting Tuck's threat of a silencing charm. "Tuck, are you _mad_? Sirius wasn't tortured—he was a double-agent!"

Tuck sent him a look that would stop a giant in its tracks. "And I'm the son of a monkey's uncle."

Between the pair of them, Don nodded tiredly. "Tuck's right, Hugh. I'm not entirely sure what's going on right now, but I know that Sirius is just as loyal as any of us. In fact, it should be our main priority to find him. The findings can wait—he's a fellow Unmentionable, and he may not be very stable right now."

"I just find it awful suspicious," and Hugh's tinny voice raised, "that Voldemort would draw information out of him that quickly. _Three days_! We see neither hide nor hair of Sirius in three days, and suddenly Lily and James are dead. Suspicious, isn't it? And according to Hagrid and other witnesses, he was on the scene…" As he spoke, Hugh used a forkful of scrambled eggs to punctuate his point, stabbing it viciously in first Tuck's and then Don's direction.

Don leaned over and thumbed through a pile of parchment sitting on the corner of Tuck's table. "Do some reading. Veritaserum, Hugh. Only two wizards competent enough to brew it—and one of them confirmed sighted in a group of Death Eaters. Pictures, named in at least four statements, the whole kit and caboodle. This Potions Master's as good as guilty. Had a young apprentice we'll need to question—pardoned by Dumbledore, of course." He looked hard at Tuck, and the other man nodded imperceptibly.

Hugh's eyes flitted easily over the sheet of parchment thrust at him. "I'm sorry, but this just doesn't match up."

"Neither does a betrayal on Sirius's part. Eat up." Tuck packed the last of his magically disappearing breakfast firmly between his jaws and stood up to retreat upstairs. "I'm off to shower and change. Be down in twenty minutes—and make sure Don goes home, Hugh." Sprinting easily up the stairs like the leggy runner he had once been in days past, he left his co-workers to their breakfasts and hurried to start the day.

*

A bitter wind blew through downtown London, but neither Tuck nor Don seemed to notice as they slid through crowds. They were both dressed in pinstriped Muggle suits, and looked as impeccable as the stock-brokers that walked alongside. Still, neither paid that much attention to the attire around them. Their eyes were too busy searching faces, while neither really appeared interested. It was a trick that years of field work, working with both the Aurors and the Hit Wizards over at the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. While Unspeakables really didn't do that much fieldwork, preferring instead to solve the mysteries from a desk, Unmentionables were all over the place, and usually in the most surprising places. Nobody could ever recall meeting a bona fide Unmentionable, but half of the wizarding population had seen erratic Don Kempworth and laid-back Tuck Crockford. They were as faceless as the next man's brother.

"See any sign of him yet?" Don asked out of the corner of his mouth.

"No, chances on the dog food are pretty low today, I've heard," Tuck replied in a conversational voice, holding a rolled newspaper out to Don. Don, scowling perversely, took it, but did not look through it. "But I will keep you informed when my sources fill me in." He tucked his gloved hands into the pockets of his long overcoat, which could double as a cloak with a simple swish of the wand.

They passed by a coffee vendor, who ignored them until Don ordered two black coffees. Once the currency was clutched in his fist and the coffees warmed the hands of the agents, the vendor went back to ignoring them. Had he been asked hours later, Don and Tuck would be nothing more than a pair of suits.

"This is the section of London where he grew up," Tuck said to Don as they found a spot along the wall to loiter, passing off as regular businessmen discussing a deal over coffee. "Since we haven't seen Pettigrew since the Potters were attacked, I'd wager that he's here, looking for Black as well. What does a boy do when everything's lost? Escape or go back to the beginning."

Don eyed the passing Muggle cars. "It wouldn't be hard for Black to flee the country," he observed. "He's as good as the rest of us."

_Which is what worries me,_ Tuck thought as he took another swallow of coffee. "I don't think he would have fled yet. They slapped a lock on the Apparation points, remember? And he's got to be innocent," he remarked, waving the hand occupied by the coffee at Don to emphasise his point. "Why bother showing up on the crime scene if you're innocent?"

Don snapped his fingers, trying to think. "Well, and I'm not saying that he _is_ guilty, but he could be throwing off the trail. Officials won't even think to look for him here. When you're guilty, it's never prudent to return to such an obvious place. Black was with the brightest of the lot—and they know that." 

Don's words did make sense, Tuck agreed queasily. Unlike Hugh, however, he would not believe that Sirius Black was capable of such outright betrayal—of all of them. Instead of answering Don's observations, he scanned the crowd and nearly splashed coffee down his front. There was a crowd gathering on the street corner, and this did not bode well with all of the experience Tuck had gained in the Muggle world. "C'mon!" he snapped, hauling on Don's shoulder. Taking one last gulp from the rejuvenating, vile liquid, he flung the styrofoam cup into a nearby waste receptacle. "Trouble!"

Paying no heed to the racing traffic, they sprinted out into the street and immediately shoved through the crowd. Seemingly from nowhere, they had produced a pair of billfolds with nondescript warrant cards and were shouting, "Step aside! Excuse me, sir, ma'am, step aside!"

People stumbled into each other as Don and Tuck nudged and shouldered their way through, still waving the billfolds. "What's the big idea?" a teen yapped as Tuck pushed him to the side.

"Official business. Disperse immediately!" Don's voice boomed above the crowd, and several people slunk away guiltily. They reminded Tuck of dogs with their tails between their legs, but he didn't give that thought too much credit. He was busy shoving through the crowd. "Go about your business! No use loitering here!"

"We were promised a show," muttered the insolent youth that had protested Tuck's actions a moment ago. Still, he was slinking off with the rest of his people, so Tuck ignored him and swivelled his head about, trying to find the source of such a show. He moved close enough to Don to mutter, "What's going on? Any idea?"

Don's eyes were dark as he swept the roadside for any signs of danger. "It's something magical, but that's all I can tell you." Years of being Unmentionables usually lent them warnings that something was about to occur, and judging from the fact that the hair on the back of Tuck's neck was standing out straight, it was going to be something large. "I think it's coming from the north, but I'm not sure." Don's sixth sense was honed more finely from his years as a Hit Wizard and political bodyguard, so Tuck had learned long before to follow his friend's instinct.

Tuck trained his eyes on the area to the north. "Say, why aren't there any cars on the road?" he asked in a low tone as they broke free of swarming mass. "Isn't that road usually quite busy at this time of day?"

"Usually." A vertical line appeared between Don's bushy eyebrows as he nodded slowly. Hands tightened on wands, discreetly kept in pockets, and the two men began to hurry north. To outsiders, they appeared to be nothing but in a large hurry to reach an office building on time. "Would you agree with me if I voiced my feelings that something is about to happen?"

Tuck didn't answer, his attention focused on the street ahead. Long legs ate up the distance quickly, and they arrived on the scene, billfolds out and ready to disperse any crowds. However, they quickly tucked these back inside jackets and pulled out their wands when they realised that Sirius Black stood, facing Peter Pettigrew, in the middle of the intersection. With wands drawn. In broad daylight. 

The question that immediately struck Tuck was, "Which one is the mouse?" Rail-thin, twenty-two-year-old Sirius Black was only a few away, his wand aimed at plump Peter Pettigrew, who, although the same age, looked much younger. They were in the same position, backs rigid, shoulders heaving, anger blazing as an equal force between them. Tuck, who had never seen shy, timid Peter Pettigrew voice something louder than a polite tone, stared for the shortest of instants. There was no telling which man had initiated the duel, and which was the prey.

Don never hesitated. "Black! Drop the wand!" he hollered, and started to charge out into the street.

"Don't come any closer, Don!" Sirius snapped, his voice hoarse, as though he had not managed to sleep in days. Judged on the events of the past week, he probably hadn't. "This traitor has to die! Azkaban's too good for him!"

Don stopped, but that may have been a result of Peter's next words.

"I'm not the traitor here!" The blubbering image of Peter Pettigrew that sprang to mind was from the year previous, when Tuck had hexed the young man for sneaking up on him during one of Lily and James's frequent barbecues. "It's _him_, I tell you! Betrayed us all! James and Lily, Sirius, how could you?"

"I _never_!" Sirius growled, wand hand shaking so badly that Tuck worried he was going to fling off sparks in front of the Muggles. "Mind telling them who the _real_ Secret-Keeper was, _Wormtail_?"

"NEVER!"

History was made then, on an abandoned street of London as Muggles and wizards looked on. A number of things could have picked this moment: the building tension, the fact that both men had been strung taut, almost to breaking points, the undeniable reality that death of two very dear friends hung like a second shawl over the foggy air. In one screamed curse, everything exploded loose, flinging mayhem everywhere.

Only the luckiest Muggle could have survived such a situation.

When the first wave of fire came, Tuck was thrown backwards, plowing painfully into Don. Only quick reflexes saved either of the pair, for they rolled as soon as they hit the ground and each immediately sprang to his feet. The resulting tremor from the explosion was enough to send Tuck to his knees. Fighting bleeding knees, a pounding head, and a very, very dry throat, Tuck struggled back onto his feet. Being lankier, he was able to reach the street, and Sirius, first. Coughing on the smoke, he found his co-worker kneeling, shocked, at the crater that surrounded the area where Peter Pettigrew had been standing.

A single finger bounced soundlessly as it struck the asphalt.

"I didn't do this!" Sirius gibbered to Tuck in a wide-eyed panic. "I didn't throw that spell! That wasn't me, I tell you!" He grabbed onto the Unmentionable, blue eyes blinking hurriedly in the debris of the spell. Both were coughing from the smoke that the spell had kicked up, but they were still managing communication. "He's…he's…" Words simply failed Sirius Black then, and he clung to Tuck like a lifeline in the middle of an ocean of confusion.

"Only got a finger left," Don observed, voice harder than Tuck had ever heard it in their long years of association. Sirius looked up at the chief Unmentionable, something akin to instinctual panic buried in his stare. "Get some bonds on him, Tuck." Don's own eyes were steely as his wand trained on Sirius, still clutching to Tuck. "Drop your wand, Black."

Too shocked to do much else, Sirius let go of his wand. It bounced and rolled until it lay next to the finger. Once he was certain that Sirius was unarmed, Don sheathed his own wand. "Check my wand, I swear! I never cast that spell! You've got to believe me, Tuck! I didn't! I never!"

Just as Tuck slowly unwound the grip of the gibbering man, the air filled with the sound of _popping!_ all around. Men and women in dark robes appeared on every street corner, in broad daylight, and immediately began to converge on the site. "Aurors," Tuck groaned silently. "How did they…?"

"Get back, get back, you!" Before Tuck could even think of finishing his question, he was being shoved to the side with an unnecessary force. He let out a yell of protest, but was blocked by the hand of another Auror over his mouth, also intent on shouting instructions. Somebody had effectively twisted both hands behind his back, rendering him unable to defend himself. "Get away from him, Muggle! Pigeon, get a memory charm on these two! Get people working on the other survivors! We've got code blue, everybody! I repeat, code blue!"

Over his shoulder, Tuck could see Sirius's shocked expression as two Aurors wrestled him to the ground. "I didn't!"

"Memory charm?" Don demanded, full of indignation at the way the two Unmentionables were being manhandled away from the site. By now, somebody had managed to slip a pair of Muggle handcuffs onto Tuck, despite his struggles. "Just wait one minute, you—!"

"Sir, I will ask that you not complete that sentence," a young woman Auror snapped at him. She looked fresh out of Hogwarts, despite her authoritative voice. "What you have witnessed here is nothing but an exploded gas pipe that was set off by a careless pedestrian lighting his cigarette. There is nothing to be alarmed about." As the two Unmentionables watched, abject horror resplendent on both faces, she pulled out a wand.

Tuck reacted first. "Pigeon, drop the wand." At least, that was what he hoped this young sprite of an Auror was called. Sergeant Blue-in-the-Face had referred to her as such, hadn't he? Struggling against the cuffs, he tried to explain. "We're _wizards_, not Mugg—"

Don apparently had other ideas of how to deal with incompetent Aurors. "Drop the wand, you sodding son-of-a—"

"_Obliviate_!"

Not ten feet away, wearing only a set of magic-blocking handcuffs to show that he was now considered a criminal, Sirius Black watched as his last hope sacrificed their memories and futures at the hands of an inept Auror.

It wouldn't strike him until much later, when he was locked down in a filthy, rotting cell on an island that nobody wished to visit, that the force of the memory charm had been a tad stronger than necessary. Only years later would he suspect that perhaps the Auror had indeed meant to force such a strong spell on the pair. That would later send him into a labyrinth of unanswered questions full of doubt and distrust of character. Questions like, "Why did they handcuff Tuck? Why wasn't I given a trial? Why didn't they check my wand?" Eventually, the word "Why?" would drive him mad. 

Right now, however, he was left without such doubts. Three full days of unresolved vengeance, anger, despair, and tragedy flew from him as he threw his head back and did the only thing a man at the end of his leash could do in such an unjust situation: he laughed.

-- And so begins the story that will redefine conspiracies everywhere. Review and enjoy! Shout-out goes to Joyce! - SD


	2. 916 Wreckage

A/N: Thanks to everybody who reviewed the prologue! And this story is finally getting off of the ground!

Disclaimer: It's not mine, it belongs to JKR and all of those big name companies like Bloomsbury and Warner Bros. They can keep it, really, I'm just here to play.

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Won't somebody tell me

How I got to this stage

When consequence is inconsequential

- Surreal by _Sister Hazel_

Chapter One: 916 Wreckage

It started the day Vernon and Petunia Dursley purchased a new motorbike for their son. It was the newest of Italian racing bikes, it was very boldly yellow, and it was the envy of every male under the age of twenty-five in the surrounding area of Little Whingeing.

Except one.

The day Dudley was given the bike, Harry was lying on the roof of the Dursley home, waiting for his seventeenth birthday to come and go. Unkempt black hair ruffled in the breeze, occasionally blowing into bright green eyes. Although he was a bit on the tall side, he had never lost the childish scrawniness that hung about his bones, only accented by the cast-offs he was forced to wear during the summertime. His feather-light build actually gave him an advantage, for he could scale the drainpipe along the side of the house quite easily by now. None of the Dursleys even thought to look for him up on their roof for nearly a month, so Harry could go for days undisturbed. Only Dudley knew that he was up there. Harry went inside only for meals and to sleep in Dudley's second bedroom, which he occupied in the summer months.

He had been listening Dudley and his long-time best friend Piers Polkiss for nearly half an hour now. They were making quite sure to admire Dudley's new bike in _very_ loud voices so that all of the neighbourhood boys would hear them. Of course, most of the neighbourhood boys were too afraid of Dudley to even come near enough for them to hear Dudley's appraisal of his newest toy. Years of being terrorised by Dudley's gang had taught the neighbourhood, including Harry, to lie low when Dudley emerged from the front doorway of number four, Privet Drive.

Although Harry wasn't particularly interested in the bike, there was nothing better to do than laugh at Dudley's idiocy at the moment. That bike would stay in the garage past Dudley's first ride, for, although he had been partly reduced from the size and weight of a telephone booth, Dudley was nowhere near lightweight. He would tip the bike, Harry was sure, and then place the fault on the bike itself. Of course, Aunt Petunia would back him up fully in this accusation.

"Like my new bike, Harry?" Dudley snickered up to the roof.

Harry, who had been pretending to sunbathe, now made a show of opening one eye and looking at the bike rather sceptically. "It's all right," he replied disinterestedly. "Not as nice as my broom, though. Breaks two hundred in a dive, or didn't you know?"

He fought back a smile as Dudley hastened to explain to Piers that even St. Brutus's locked Harry into a cupboard, and Harry had grown a strange obsession with brooms. It was actually pretty clever for something Dudley would say, Harry had to admit.

The summer had gone rather peacefully so far. Post came regularly, delivered by either Hedwig, Harry's owl, or Pig, Ron's owl. The days were rather languidly wasted away, spent on the thoughts of the upcoming school year, and all the promising subjects that were going to be taught. Harry had learned how to keep his mind purposely blank, and he spent that summer putting his theories to practice. Of course, a month into vacation, and those practices were starting to slip…

Forcing himself away from that path, he thought of his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, who had finally stopped skirting around each other like skittish kittens. He thought of his friend and professor, Rubeus Hagrid, who was off on some secret assignment Professor Dumbledore had given him concerning something in the mountains. Hagrid always spent the summers gone and doing secretive things. The summer before fifth year it had been giants, but Harry knew that Hagrid was now working some something entirely different. 

Harry thought of Professor Dumbledore, also, and half-smiled whenever he thought about the sage old wizard, just bursting at the very edge of sanity. Amends had been made between the two in sixth year, fortunately. He thought of the Weasley family, who let him come and live with them at the end of every summer when it was possible. He even thought of stern Professor McGonagall, with her Quidditch obsessions and strict demeanour.

He did not think of Voldemort.

He made it a point never to think of all of the horrific experiences he had suffered at the hands of the most evil Dark Lord to rise. He did not think of them as worthless., or try to convince himself that they never happened. Those points were never moot, but he did not see the point of drowning himself in darkness for an entire summer. He had done that before, and had come off so angry that he had nearly shoved everything he loved away from him. It was as Hermione had pointed out sometime in their sixth year, "Why let him win by destroying your life like you're trying to do?"

So Harry thought about the good things in his life.

He had been doing this for the entire month of July, and with his birthday two days away, his thoughts kept wandering to the magic he would be able to perform. Although he would not be qualified to work in any magical positions in any magical institute, seventeen was the ideal age for a young wizard or witch to start working magic outside of school. Harry spent most of his time daydreaming about what horrible pranks he could pull on the Dursleys. Maybe he could even learn how to Apparate… 

The loud heckling of a motorbike cut through his thoughts, and Harry rolled onto his side. Dudley had somehow managed to cram the helmet onto his fat head (how, Harry wasn't sure, but he was pretty positive that there was no blood going to Dudley's already-starved brain), and had just mounted the bike. Silently, Harry wagered that he would make it at least two blocks before taking his spill. Dudley wobbled his way out of the driveway, leaving Piers and Harry behind. Harry, head propped up on his arm, was content to ignore Dudley's bothersome little friend.

Piers, however, had other ideas. He wandered over to the rose garden, where he could get a proper view of Harry. "Dudley says they beat you at St. Brutus's. Is that true?"

"Uhm," said Harry agreeably, not really listening. He was debating how Uncle Vernon would look with pink polka dots and purple stripes, once he was able to work magic.

"Really? Do they use a pike?" Piers's eyes shone.

"Pike, club, staff, you name it." The Uncle Vernon in Harry's mind was now sporting a very unbecoming ballerina's tutu and lime-green tie. "I reckon they used bits of glass on my friend once."

"_Bits of glass_?" Piers echoed, his eyes growing as round as saucers. "_Really_?"

Harry was saved from carrying on this inane conversation by the arrival of a brown, regal-looking bird that he immediately recognised to be a Ministry owl. Both he and Piers watched it flutter across the sky, sending a shadow over Harry for the flickering of a moment, and fly into Harry's bedroom. "St. Brutus's must really want me back," Harry told Piers with a cheeky grin, easily standing up on the slanted roof. Knowing that Piers was goggling after him, he shimmied down the drainpipe and levered himself into the bedroom.

Blinking to get rid of the sunspots, Harry looked around for the owl, finally spotting it on the unmade bed. Hedwig chattered out a cautious greeting as the owl relinquished its message to Harry. Without waiting for him to read it, the owl took flight through the window again. "Wonder what this is about," he said aloud to Hedwig, and broke the seal.

The Gringotts letterhead flashed across the top of Harry's message, causing him to wrinkle his brow. "Why would Gringotts send me a letter?" It was actually more of a note, he corrected silently as he scanned over the message.

'_Dear Mr. Potter,_

Our records indicate that your seventeenth birthday is drawing near. Gringotts has taken the liberty to schedule you an appointment at 10.00 a. m. sharp on July 31st to discuss the contents of vault 909 and your account with us.

Please be prompt.

Kind regards,

Glomsnag'

Well, this certainly presented a few problems. Harry glanced at the calendar. It was early afternoon of the 29th of July, which did not give him much time to work out how to get to London by the 31st. With no Muggle money to his name, Harry didn't possibly dream of taking the train. He supposed that he could just ask his uncle for a ride, but that would mean swallowing his pride and admitting that he was dependent on the Dursleys. Harry would rather swallow gillyweed.

A loud wail outside drew his attention to the window.

Limping up the driveway was a very disgruntled Dudley Dursley, with his sidekick pulling up a very scratched, very expensive motorbike up the drive. The front tire looked a bit bent, but that may have been a trick in the light. As Harry watched, unnoticed, Piers put down the kick-stand and the pair looked mournfully at the wrecked bike. "Dad is going to _kill_ me," drifted through the open window.

"Oh, come off it, Duds. He didn't kill you when you ran over Mrs. Figg back when we were eleven, did he?"

If anything, Dudley just looked more miserable. "Piers, do you realise that Mrs. Figg is nothing compared to a telephone pole and a very expensive motorbike?" Harry, who never realised that his cousin could _make_ comparisons like that, was astonished that the glutton actually knew the difference between a full-grown woman and a telephone pole.

His aunt and uncle wouldn't be home until that evening, he knew. Aunt Petunia was off, shopping or mingling with the other wives in the hierarchy of Grunnings Drill Co. Uncle Vernon was of course at work, yelling at some random Joe at the bottom of the food chain, and feeling all too good for it. It was Monday, which meant that the 31st was a Wednesday. If he figured it correctly, Aunt Petunia had some club to attend that day, and Uncle Vernon would be bellowing at a new Joe. And they'd want him out of the house on Wednesday anyway, for they were having company that night…Before the plan had fully formed in his head, Harry was out the window, scurrying down the drainpipe.

"Dudley!" he called, racing across the yard.

Piers and Dudley looked up at him as though he was mad. They were both crouched, examining the bent wheel of the motorbike. Blood was dribbling from a cut on Dudley's arm onto the bike, but the paunchy young man had not noticed. "What do you want?" Dudley asked in a guarded voice.

Harry eyed the bike, which had certainly been dinged up by Dudley's encounter with the telephone pole. "I can fix the bike," he offered in a rush.

Even Dudley wasn't stupid enough to believe that a boy who had hated him for over a decade would offer to fix up his most prized possession without recompense. "Right," he said uncertainly. "You can't use—what do you want for it, then?" He barely caught himself from uttering the word 'magic' in front of Piers.

Harry looked his cousin straight in the eye, a feat he hadn't managed since Dudley started to retain the effects of a very glutinous ogre. "I need to borrow it."

He was expecting disbelief; he was not, however, expecting Dudley and Piers to throw their heads back and howl as though this was the funniest joke he had ever told. He frowned at the pair of them until they settled down enough for Piers to ask, "What are you, crazy? Duds would never let you borrow his bike."

"He would if he knew that I have…_ways_…of preventing it from ever getting scratched again," Harry said mildly. "And I can fix that in a jiffy, really." He looked from one boy to the other; Piers was still chuckling with disbelief, but Dudley for once looked thoughtful. "Either way, if you need me, I'll be on the roof."

It did not take long after Piers left for Dudley to approach the rose garden and shout up, "Could you really fix it? I thought you weren't supposed to work—er, you know—outside of school!"

Rolling his eyes at Dudley's fear of voicing the word "magic," Harry turned onto his side for a better view of his obese cousin. "Fat lot you know!" he called back. "I'm seventeen then, and fully able to work magic on Wednesday."

"Shh!" Dudley hissed, glancing at the neighbour's house with some trepidation. Harry didn't bother to hide his sigh of exasperation and rolled onto his back, his eyes once again staring at the clouds. He could hear Dudley muttering to himself, probably thinking aloud. The thought of his portly relative actually engaging in such a novel activity (to Dudley, at least) made Harry furrow his brow. Was Dudley Dursley even capable of anything that didn't involve grunting, eating, or hitting things?

"Er, how long do you want it for?" Dudley asked after a moment.

Harry shrugged, not looking down from the roof. "Wednesday." He kept his answer purposely blank, not wanting to reveal exactly where he was headed with the bike.

"Can you really fix it?" Dudley pressed uncertainly. "Normally, I don't care, but Dad spent over thirty-thousand pounds on this and…" To Harry's amusement, he was wringing his fat hands nervously, like Neville did whenever he mucked another potion up.

In the end, Dudley finally agreed to let Harry have the motorbike for as long as he needed it (within reasonable bounds), and Harry only needed a repairing charm and a charm that would guard the bike against dents and scratches. Really, Harry thought, he walked away at the better end of the deal. This charm was easily located in Harry's broomstick servicing manual, after all. Harry went inside that night and went down to dinner with the Dursleys feeling quite excited about Wednesday.

How Dudley managed to hide the bike for two days, Harry would never find out. He wasn't bothered too much to learn, either. Instead, he had spent Monday evening and all of Tuesday preparing for the journey into London. A rucksack full of provisions was propped up next to the front door. The Dursleys had bought his excuse that he was going up to London with Mrs. Figg on Wednesday with alarming eagerness (they had forgotten that Mrs. Figg had left at the beginning of that week to visit her daughter).

He was not going into Wednesday completely unprepared. Two hours before his birthday, he was lying flat on his stomach on his bed, chin resting on his palms as he read the manual on Dudley's Ducati 916 Corsa. It was one of the most powerful motorbikes to date, Harry learned, and very, very expensive. Years of studying with Hermione gave Harry an added benefit as he moved through the pages, memorising the theory behind driving the Corsa.

He hoped it would become easier once he actually got on the bike.

By falling asleep, he missed the flurry of owls that came at midnight to mark his seventeenth birthday. Instead, he saw them sitting on his bedposts when he awoke at five in the morning, hooting rather sleepily. At such an early hour, Harry had a bit of trouble comprehending the fact that they wanted payment, not just to be stared at. Hedwig's authoritative hoot finally drew him to his senses, and he fed them broken biscuits from the nearly-empty tin on his desk. Instead of opening the letters and packages they brought, however, he stuffed those under the floorboard and waited in the entrance hall for Dudley to come downstairs. They could wait until that evening, even though he was dreadfully curious. He needed to get away from the house before the Dursleys woke if he ever wanted to reach London.

Dudley had stashed the bike in an abandoned shed a few houses away, hidden rather hastily under some fronds he had plucked from the bushes outside. Harry brushed these off, not bothering to notice that Dudley winced every time he touched the Ducati. "Hmm," he muttered to himself. "You did a right proper job of banging this up, didn't you?" Even in the early morning darkness, he could see the wrecked wheel, and the gash alongside the yellow tank. Dudley squeaked when Harry removed his wand, but Harry once again ignored him. "_Reparo_!" Harry said, and the bike sprang to its original condition. "There. It's fixed." Using one of the spells he had found in his broomstick servicing manual, he spelled the bike against dents and scratches.

"Don't tell anybody about this!" he hissed to Dudley as the two wheeled the bike out of the shed and onto the road. He swung up onto the bike rather awkwardly and moved the kick-stand up with his foot. "If the Ministry finds out that I've been messing around with a Muggle artefact, I'm in trouble."

"Like I would!" Dudley snapped caustically, looking downright scandalised. He was a perfectly normal boy, after all, and didn't want anybody to know that he was connected to such freakishness. He snorted as Harry shrank the massive bike helmet, fitting it perfectly on his own unruly head. "Do you even know how to drive it?"

Harry's answer was the healthy cough of the engine.

"You crash this thing, and I will kill you if it doesn't," Dudley promised before Harry could remember how to accelerate. Without so much as a look back, Harry took off and left his porcine relative in the dust.

*

James Potter choked as dust clouded about his face. "Why'd you do that?" He coughed twice and glared at Sirius, who was rapidly making his getaway, leaving very dusty footprints behind. Luckily, nobody had seen the minor prank; James merely shook his head and the dust floated off. 

Nearly ten o'clock at night, the library was virtually abandoned. Sirius Black had just darted through the doors, leaving a gagging James Potter and, some tables away, Severus Snape. Madam Pince, the librarian, glared over at James, as though it were his fault that he was having difficulty breathing. Besides the rather unlikely trio, the library was deserted.

James closed _Everything You Really Never Wanted to Know About Ghouls, Ghosts, and Poltergeists_, tired of writing his Care of Magical Creatures essay. The red book almost seemed to smile wickedly at him. Professor Kettleburn was feeling particularly vindictive towards the Marauders, especially in light of the fact that their prank had nearly made him lose another finger. Who could have known that Crups would react so oddly to powdered Laughing Liquid? Well, Sirius _had_ known, but that was beside the point. All four of the Marauders were still bogged down with terrible essays on meaningless things like petty house ghosts who pestered Muggles in their sleep.

"The library closes in ten minutes. I expect the both of you to be gone by then," Madam Pince called to the two seventh-years. James barely glanced up from rereading his essay to give her an affirming smile. He double-checked the last sentence and rolled up the parchment, glancing easily over his shoulder at where Severus Snape was finishing up his own essay.

The relationship between Severus Snape and the Marauders had always been a sticky one, defined by very murky, hostile boundaries. Although Snape's group and James's group were known for their explosive and often-harmful fights, lately it had been a simple matter of ignoring each other. James knew as well as Snape did that Sirius did not feel remorseful for the prank he had pulled the year before, just as Snape did not feel remorseful for putting the lives of half of the school in danger. Even though James had indeed gone into the labyrinth beneath the Whomping Willow to save his classmate, the two were not anywhere near the stages of friendship. Too much existed in their past for that. As the brightest minds in the school, they might have at once had a camaraderie or at least a strange kinship, but House and war lines had drawn them apart. Most of the school _knew_ that Severus Snape was a Death Eater.

James did nothing to disprove the rumour.

He stretched now and tucked his schoolbooks into his already-bulging bag, frowning as the seams strained. Piling the books he had collected from the brimming shelves, he sauntered to Madam Pince's desk and waited politely while she marked down which books he was taking. His brown eyes roamed over the shelves behind the librarian's desk, familiar from seven years of seeing the same thing. Once Madam Pince had finished with the books, James carefully picked them up, making sure _Everything You Really Never Wanted To Know About Ghouls, Ghosts, and Poltergeists _was on top. He had to finish that essay first.

Severus Snape did not look up as James passed his table. He did not even move from his essay until at least two minutes after James had left the library completely. Instead of turning right to head off to the Slytherin dormitories, however, Snape turned left, headed for the grounds, and furthermore, the Forbidden Forest.

*

Harry Potter had never felt such a sense of freedom.

Driving through the streets of London while not very familiar with a motorbike and not entirely certain on traffic regulations was a dangerous task, but Harry had always thrived on danger. The Ducati alternately heckled and purred as he slowly grew accustomed to the pull of the Muggle bike. He even began to relax and _enjoy_ the rather terrifying ride, trusting that the map he had found in the phone directory was reliable. The bike was powerfully manoeuvrable, a feat that allowed him to weave through London morning traffic and make good time on the way to the city. He arrived in the city around 7.30, and used the next half hour to find a good parking spot.

Finding a free place to park in the vicinity of The Leaky Cauldron almost proved harder than dealing with the bike, and as it was, Harry had to walk several blocks to reach his destination. Placing an anti-theft charm on the Ducati hadn't been complex at all. He still had two hours before his meeting with the goblins, which gave him plenty of time to amble down the street and look at the window displays. Before he had found out about Hogwarts and his world, Harry had spent hours window shopping. Now that he actually had money, it was still a bit hard to break habits. He arrived at The Leaky Cauldron with a few Sickles to waste and plenty of time to kill.

His stomach rumbled even as Tom prepared him a plate of eggs and toast. "Here on Hogwarts business, Mr. Potter?" the bartender asked as he dropped egg yolk and white into a frying pan.

Harry shook his head. "I'll probably go later in the summer with the Weasleys. Right now, I'm on Gringotts business." It felt good to say that, like he worked for Gringotts like Ron's older brother Bill. "How's business at the Cauldron?"

"We get a fair few of out-of-towners, but right now, it's mostly regulars." Tom flashed his trademark toothless grin, spurring Harry to smile back. "Otherwise, business is the same as it's always been." Despite the friendly overtures in the bartender's tone, Harry caught the subtle message buried beneath: "There is absolutely nothing going on that would change business." Many wizards still believed that Voldemort had not come back to life—he merely had some less-dangerous counterpart terrorising everybody. The Aurors would deal with him shortly, they all believed.

The injustice of it all usually made Harry's blood boil, but now he was too shaken by the ride on the motorbike to argue. "Very well," he said evenly, taking a large drink of tea to hide the inevitable scowl. No matter how many times he pulled back his sleeve to show the remnants of the bite of Wormtail's blade, or even touched his forehead, people would rather follow the fear than truth. That was the end of that conversation; Tom pushed the plate to Harry, who nodded thankfully and sat hunched over his food in a way that suggested conversation was unwelcome. He'd learned how to do that without being offensive, mostly for Ron and Hermione's sakes.

Instead of making short work of his meal like he normally did, he took his time, surreptitiously watching the steady flow of patrons enter through the grate and the front door. Most were regulars, shop-keepers on the way to work, Harry didn't doubt as he watched Tom call out salutations to a fair number. For the most part, Harry kept his hair down, glad that he had remembered a cap to cover the betraying mop of hair and distinctive scar. Most of the passers-by didn't even give him a second glance as he finished his breakfast and paid Tom. Nodding his thanks for the meal, he headed into Diagon Alley with an hour and a half to waste.

It was outside Quality Quidditch Supplies where the twinge started. It began, oddly enough, in his left elbow of all places. Said elbow had been leaning against a fence post outside of his favourite store. Entranced by the new Speed Sweeper 18, he did not notice at first. When the twinge refused to go away after continued shaking of his arm, he clutched his elbow and examined it, frowning. A muttered spell didn't stop the twinge.

His frown deepened. While the twinge didn't hurt, it was certainly quite annoying. It didn't leave his arm at all, either, even as he browsed through the racks of used Quidditch paraphernalia. In fact, it stuck around even as he crossed to the gargantuan front doors of Gringotts over an hour later. By then, he was slowly learning to ignore it, but occasionally, the twinge would become just the slightest bit painful, and the cycle would start again. As a result, Harry was very grumpy by the time he nearly stomped into Gringotts.

"Do you have a habit of being late, Mr. Potter, or do you make it a special occasion for goblins?" asked the head goblin as Harry moved to the front desk to find out where his appointment was scheduled.

"I'm not late," Harry said, bewildered. A glance at the gigantic clock mounted above the head desk told him otherwise; the minute hand (labelled that way for the Muggle-born, obviously, for there were twelve hands and planets spinning about) had just landed on the second tick from the highest planet, making him exactly two minutes late for an appointment. Grumbling and rubbing his elbow for good measure, he muttered, "Sorry about that."

The goblin looked at him shrewdly. "We will overlook it _this_ time." His manner spoke as though he were doing Harry the world's greatest favour. The Boy-Who-Lived narrowed his eyes, but said nothing as he was directed to the office of Glomsnag. Of course, his elbow twitched like a mental patient through the twisting corridors to the gloomy lair (for Harry refused to call it an office after just one glimpse at the dark walls and cave-like furniture). "This is my office, Mr. Potter."

"It's, er, nice," Harry said, feeling insanely tall. He was nowhere near the height his best friend had reached in their sixth year, but his head was mere centimetres from the ceiling nonetheless. At Glomsnag's instructions, he took a very awkward seat in one of the stone-grey chairs. "Your, er, your message didn't mention why it was exactly that you summoned here."

Glomsnag had pulled out a gold-tipped quill and was now rummaging about for a pair of reading glasses. He looked exactly like every other goblin Harry had laid eyes on, with only the slightest glimmer of red in his stiff beard to identify him. The robes he wore bore the Gringotts crest on the lapels and back of the collar. "It is custom, Mr. Potter, to call a wizard in to read off his estate when he becomes of-age." Even though the goblin was shorter than him, Harry got the distinct feeling that Glomsnag was looking down his nose at the young wizard. "It is also customary to have your next-of-kin present as well, but both Sirius Black and Mr. and Mrs. Potter were unavailable."

What a sick, horrible joke, Harry thought, but said nothing. He felt nauseous, as he did whenever Sirius's name was mentioned in public. A goblin by the name of Pinchpocket ended up standing in for Sirius Black.

The reading of the estate was very boring, even with the carbon copy Harry held in front of him. After the words "comeuppance," "therein," "hereafter," and "aforementioned" had started to war with the twinge in his elbow, he stopped listening to Glomsnag and started scanning the list of things he had inherited. Seeing his fortune on paper made him feel extremely uncomfortable, but underneath that was…

"I've got my parent's old house?" he asked without thinking, interrupting Glomsnag's long-winded description of the number of Galleons in his vault. "The one in Godric's Hollow?"

Clearly confused, Glomsnag just blinked down at his young client. "Godric's Hollow is a series of safehouses owned by the Ministry of Magic, Mr. Potter. They haven't been used in years. You are entitled to all rights belonging and pertaining to the Potter estate outside of Brighton, which was the next item on my list if you would be so kind as to cease your incessant blathering."

Harry bristled, but listened carefully as Glomsnag described the Potter estate in fuller detail. A photograph was passed from goblin to human, and Harry forgot the twitch in his elbow as he stared at the picture of the expansive mansion. "I own _that_?" he asked.

Glomsnag looked down at his documents, clearly annoyed that Harry kept interrupting. Pinchpocket also looked annoyed, but that may have been the neutral expression for a goblin. "When you sign for it, yes, you do. Would you like me to finish reading your assets now?"

"What?—oh, sure, go ahead." Fascinated with the photograph, Harry did not pay attention at all until he heard, "And those are all of the assets of Mr. Harry Potter. Mr. Potter, if you will please sign here?"

"Can I keep this picture?" Harry asked, waving it at the goblins. They looked at him as though he were quite daft, but he did not mind. After all, he had a photograph—picture evidence—that his parents were not the layabouts that his uncle always claimed they were. And he owned _this_, a mansion that had be twice the size of the Burrow on its side. Of course, he wasn't going to show it to Ron just yet, but he and Ron could live there as flatmates after Hogwarts!

"If you sign the documents claiming you as owner to the Potter estate and all of its assets, you could even feed it to a lethifold, if you so such desire," Glomsnag snapped, his patience finally wearing out. "But we request that you sign the documents—"

"And quickly," Pinchpocket added, the first words he had uttered in front of Harry.

"—So that we may get back to work."

His elbow twitched harder, as though agreeing with them, so Harry relented and leaned forward, taking the gold-tipped quill from Glomsnag. His eyes scanned the document once more, skimming over the confusing words in barely-legible script, before he signed a very messy "Harry Potter" at the bottom of the scroll. He wanted desperately to say, "There. Happy?" but knew that was entirely too childish for a new adult wizard. Instead, he creased the photograph and slid it into his back pocket. "Will that be all?"

It wasn't, apparently; Pinchpocket leaned forward as well and signed in the "Witness" position, and then Glomsnag confirmed that yes, indeed, that was everything. Pinchpocket escorted Harry to the main foyer once again, but before the young man could leave, the goblin stopped him by dropping a ring full of keys into his hand. "Your keys, sir."

"Keys?" Harry asked, bewildered once again.

"Yes, of course. They're labelled—the house keys are gold, the key to your vault is once again bronze, and the silver key is for the motorcycle parked out front. It was, after all left in your possession by Sirius Black's last will and testament."

_Why would Sirius give _me_ his motorbike? _Harry thought to himself, but aloud he just thanked the goblin and mentioned that he would like to take some money from his vault. Sirius had been born to an entirely wizarding family, and the motorbike was about as Muggle as they came. Of course, he knew very little about his godfather, so he could be entirely wrong. He puzzled this over even as the cart raced haphazardly along the winding tracks to his vault.

Standing next to his vault and looking quite harassed was Remus J. Lupin.

*

The fact that James could only hear two people breathing heavily was perhaps the only warning he had when he pulled open his curtains and saw Sirius sitting cross-legged in the centre of his own bed, looking as though he belonged there.

The other boy did not waste time; he started in immediately, fury hidden beneath the deceptively calm blue eyes. He had obviously waited a long time for James to appear from the rendezvous. "That's the fifth time this month, Prongs. You keep disappearing—and you're not going to the kitchens, bring you _can't_ escape from there without bringing food back. Lily's asleep in her bed, so she's never out with you. I checked every time. Are you cheating on her?"

It had already been a long night, and from this point, it looked like it was getting longer. Normally, James would have been angry at Sirius's accusations, but they were grounded in what the other boy believed to be fact. James hadn't proven anything otherwise as of yet; he was too busy covering the hides of himself and several other people to think of a logical story to feed to Sirius. It was no use trying to lie to the other boy, either; Sirius had a nose for when James was lying. "No," James said truthfully, "I'm not cheating on Lily, Padfoot."

"Then where are you going?" Sirius hissed. He had not moved, but James could see that his back was rigid. The other boy was just as tired as he felt. Warning bells went off in James's head; if they were both exhausted beyond all measure, things could be said that weren't meant to be said. They would both regret an argument in the morning. "Your behaviour is awfully suspicious for somebody who's _not_ cheating on his girlfriend."

The first stab of angry broke through James's calm façade, but he pushed it back. Getting hot-headed in a situation like this would do nobody any good. "Why would I _want_ to cheat on Lily?" he demanded, removing the Invisibility Cloak from his shoulders so that more than his head was visible. "Geez, Padfoot, you know this better than I do. Lily's the best thing that ever happened to me. I was…well, I was an idiot before her. You know that."

He could see his words working to crumple the calm exterior, but Sirius Black had never been known to back down easily. He still believed himself to be right in what Lily had tactfully taken to calling the Whomping Willow Incident, even though he had jeopardised a lot of lives that night. Snape hadn't been alone, after all. "Does she know where you go?" Sirius asked softly, the exterior cracking with every syllable. James blinked; Sirius looked absolutely betrayed. There was supposed to be no secrets between friends in this bunch.

Once again caught away from a lie, James just nodded. "Yes, she knows." He didn't say who else knew; he didn't want to push Sirius any farther than necessary. "Look, Padfoot, I couldn't tell you—I wanted to—"

"I see how it is." Sirius's voice was a whisper now, and he wouldn't look at James. "That's all right, then. If you want to tell her things you won't tell me, then I see how it is."

"Oh, climb off your high horse, we both know you don't feel that way." Exhausted beyond all reason, James plunked himself down on his trunk, not bothering to be quiet about it. Peter could sleep harder than a dead man, and Remus had just suffered a full moon two nights before, and was still sleeping the pain off. He played with the Invisibility Cloak, letting the quicksilver fabric slip through his fingers. "Nobody but Lily knows where I go for a reason. It's dangerous—if you know where I am, your life is automatically in danger. Lily doesn't really have a choice, as she's involved, too."

"I can keep a secret!" Sirius protested, leaning forward onto his hands so that his knees shifted under him.

But James just shook his head. "No, you can't," he said, rather sadly, as though somebody close to them had passed away. "The people I'm meeting know about the Whomping Willow Incident and who caused it." He didn't say that the only reason they knew was because the Incident had actually driven them to him.

As expected, Sirius puffed up like an angry hen. "That was not _my _fault! Snape's the git who was poking around—can't take the consequences—"

"And you're the git that told him what he needed to know—to kill himself!" James snapped, temper finally breaking. "Look, the gist is that they don't trust anybody, so I can't tell you. I can't even tell Moony or Wormtail. Do you think I _like _keeping secrets from you? I don't! It's bloody hard, the sneaking out, the keeping everything from you. If I could change it, I would—in a heartbeat. But I can't." He blinked furiously at Sirius. "Now, go to bed. There's a Charms exam tomorrow, and we're both tired. I'll tell you as much as I can—when I can."

When James was being final, everybody knew it. Maybe it was in the set of his shoulders or his mouth, or the look in his eyes that clearly told anybody near enough that he could and would take on the world if he had to. Such determination was rare, even for a Gryffindor. Perhaps this was why Sirius hastily shut his mouth and climbed off of James's bed and stiffly crossed the room to his own bed.

And so it was that the ten-day silence, the longest James and Sirius had gone without speaking to each other, began.

Even in the end, Sirius never did figure out where it was that James went to. 


	3. Weebles and WishBabies

A/N: This story will start to resemble an acid trip very soon. I'm sorry if I confuse anybody by switching back and forth, but there's really not much to do about it. I was aiming for a style somewhat similar to _Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels _or _Snatch_, only with two or three plotlines instead of one. The L/J plotline doesn't necessarily go in order, but I give everybody ample evidence in each scene to show just the time period is.

Disclaimer: All the characters you see here that you recognise belong to the wonderfully talented JK Rowling and Warner Bros. and all of those fun affiliates, like Bloomsbury and not me. Thanks.

Next thing I recall

Well, I was hanging from a cliff

When an angel came to rescue me

And held me in her grip

She said, "Everyone who's ever loved you

Gets hurt in the end."

Then she smiled and said, "Forgive me,"

As she let go of my hand.

- Recognize by _Better Than Ezra_

Chapter Two: Weebles and Wish-Babies

"Remus!" Harry said in surprise. He stood up so quickly that he nearly pitched face-first from the cart; Pinchpocket gave him a severe look.

Remus looked up, startled. He had been rubbing his toe in the dust around the vault, drawing some inane figure or other. Immediately, he tensed up and drew his wand. When he saw that it was just Pinchpocket and Harry, though, he pocketed the wand and smiled. "Harry! Took your time getting here, didn't you?"

The ex-professor's hair was streaked with more grey than Harry remembered, and the patches on his robes seemed to have acquired patches. The werewolf's face was also an unhealthy grey colour, but he still smiled and pulled Harry into a sound hug after the young man had climbed from the rickety cart. "It was a really long will," Harry said ruefully as they broke apart. "I had no idea that I would inherit so much."

Remus's look froze slightly as they both heard the "Ahem!" noise from Pinchpocket. "Not now, Harry," Remus said out of the corner of his mouth. "Good morning, Pinchpocket."

"What are you doing here?" Pinchpocket demanded, outraged. "This is Gringotts property—we can't have you traipsing along the vaults like a common criminal, Mr. Lupin!"

How Pinchpocket knew Remus by name, Harry wasn't sure. Somehow, though, he wasn't too surprised that Remus was acquainted with at least one goblin. Indeed, Remus straightened his shabby robes and said sharply, "Albus Dumbledore himself owled you to arrange this meeting, Pinchpocket. Don't pull that one on me." To Harry, he said, "Hurry up and collect your money. We've not much time."

Harry did, pushing the Sickles, Galleons, and Knuts into a pouch in his backpack. He had planned ahead, budgeting out the money he would need for both the Hogsmeade trips and year-round birthday gifts and Christmas presents. On impulse, he threw a couple more Galleons than he had originally planned into his pocket, to exchange for Muggle money. Dudley would throw an awful fit if he returned the bike with an empty tank. His elbow twitched once as he closed the vault door and turned back to the goblin and the werewolf. Instinctively, he clutched at it.

"Something wrong with your arm there, Harry?" Remus asked shrewdly as Harry clambered back into the cart, still holding his left arm.

Harry opened his mouth to tell him about the strange twinge, but before sound could escape, Pinchpocket called, "We're off!" The cart started with such a lurch that Harry was forced to hold onto the side for fear of falling into the murky labyrinth of cart tracks. On the way back up to the Gringotts main building, he could have sworn that he saw a flash of fire, like in his first year. He would have to remember to tell Hagrid.

"Always liked the ride back," Remus said conversationally as the cart pulled to a stop and they climbed out. Harry's pockets jingled loudly, so he stuck both hands in them and followed his old mentor into the main foyer. Pinchpocket bowed to them both and wished them a rather frosty "Good day!" With that, Harry and Remus were left standing in the foyer while witches and wizards of all sizes scuttled about. Remus eyed a group of unsavoury looking goblins off to the left. "Anything else you need to get?"

Harry pulled the Galleons out of his pocket. "I need to exchange for some Muggle money, so that I can fill up the tank," he finally said. "I have to have the bike back by tonight."

"Not a problem, chap!" came a voice behind him so suddenly that Harry whirled and drew his wand. He immediately dropped it to his side the second he saw Tonks, resplendent with red-gold hair that was now down to her shoulders. "That's my job, actually."

"Tonks!" Harry said, blinking. 

The witch nodded, a thick grin nearly splitting her face right in half. "Wotcher, Harry," she exclaimed. "You're taller every time I see you!" 

Harry was pulled quite unexpectedly into a hug; had he not caught himself at the last minute, he would have surely taken a tumble onto the polished floor of Gringotts. "When did you get here?" He looked around, half-expecting to see Moody or even Kingsley Shacklebolt. He was disappointed; all he saw was his own reflection in the mirror behind him. When he looked back, Tonks was slowly growing taller. Harry was quite startled to see his own eyes blinking back at him. "Wait, what's going on?"

Remus glanced around to check if they had picked up any stalkers and nodded to indicate that they should start walking toward the exit into Diagon Alley. "I'm afraid we have a bit of news," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as Harry tried to keep up. "Bad news. You see, Blood Magic weakens when a wizard becomes of age. Dumbledore arranged for this meeting to happen this morning, so that you would have a perfectly acceptable reason to get out of the house."

"What he's saying is that Dumbledore set this up so that we can get you someplace safer," Tonks summed up for Remus. Harry noticed that her hair was very slowly going to black and that they were of an equal height now. Nobody around them seemed to notice, surprisingly. Of course, Harry had seen so many strange things in Diagon Alley that he doubted he would have noticed, either. A curious collection of hooting drew his attention to Eeylop's Owl Emporium. When he glanced back, there was a faint outline of lightning on Tonks's forehead. It was now starting to get very strange.

"Quick—in here," Remus said, tugging on Harry's arm to pull him into an alleyway. A narrow path was slotted between two very dirty brick walls. Harry wrinkled his nose just as his arm gave an almighty jerk. "Something wrong?" Remus asked.

Once again, Harry never got to answer. Three deep, black lines suddenly stretched across the brick wall on his left, causing him to step back in surprise. Of course, there was nowhere to step back to, so his back hit the brick wall behind him. As he watched, the three lines met and a doorknob appeared out of nowhere. This was immediately pushed open; Harry caught a glimpse of red and then George Weasley's smiling face. "Right on time!" he said cheerfully. "Good to see you, Harry—or is it Tonks?"

"That's Harry," Tonks said in Harry's voice, pointing at the real Harry. "I'm Tonks."

George just beamed and pumped Harry's hand. "Happy birthday, then! Come in, come in," he told the threesome in the alleyway. "Fred and I just got done with the final step. You'll like what we've cooked up, Harry, I promise." He jerked his freckled, red head at them all and stepped into the dark area behind the doorway. Following Remus's nod, Harry stepped in as well. Remus came in right behind him, and Tonks brought up the rear.

Harry blinked. They appeared to be standing in some sort of corridor, but he could see almost nothing except the shadowy lines of shelving all around. As far as he could tell, there were several oblong and strange objects on each shelf. He had no desire to get further acquainted with these objects. Quickly, he hurried his steps so that he was right behind George. "This is our storehouse," George explained as the corridor made a sharp right. "We purchased it with the profits we made in the last year. We keep all of our latest and greatest gag gifts here. Plus, some old junk. Memories of our youth, Fred likes to call them."

"And, you know," Tonks said from behind Harry, "the Order of the Phoenix."

George grinned back at her. "Well, yes, there is that," he said distantly. "Watch your step." Harry barely avoided falling flat on his face as a cat threaded between his legs. "Marco the Magnificent. An idea of Lee's that never quite pulled through. Here—right this way." Up ahead, Harry could see a thin bar of light near the floor, obviously a door of some type. George tapped it twice with his wand, and it glowed a brilliant blue that hurt Harry's eyes. "Constant vigilance, you know," he joked to Harry. "Lets Fred know I'm coming in so that he won't blow us up."

"That's helpful," Harry said uncertainly.

George just beamed again. "Oh, yes, dead useful. Glows red whenever Mum's around," he agreed, and pushed the door open.

It was like walking into some kind of mad toy store that had met up with a mad scientist's laboratory and had decided to mate. Harry felt that he might possibly go blind looking at all of the excruciatingly bright colours. A long, low table sat directly in the middle of the room, scarred and stained by potions and explosions. It was a blinding shade of green, possibly the brightest thing in the room. Shelving covered every wall, stocked to the beams with a wild assortment of different things. One set was labelled "Dangerous Chemicals" and carried jars of everything from poisoned dragon's liver to a bottle of dehydrated doxy eggs. Some shelves held brightly-coloured objects that looked like toys. Mixed in was the odd Muggle appliance. Boxes of fake wands, trays of Canary Creams, and even Skiving Snackboxes were piled into the corner.

Standing in the middle of it all and decked in blue so bright that Harry saw an afterimage, was Fred Weasley.

Harry nearly tripped again as Marco the Magnificent pushed his way between Harry's sneakers. "Like him?" Fred asked as Harry looked down. "Instant-Familiar."

"He's a robot," Harry said, startled. Twin LED eyes blinked up at the Boy-Who-Lived. From somewhere within the bowels of the machine, a clanking sort of purr emerged. "You built a robot cat?!"

George frowned down at Marco the Magnificent. "He was supposed to be a dog, but yes, I suppose we did. He likes you."

"Dogs don't purr," Tonks observed. "Well, at least, not the ones I've associated with." Harry looked over and was quite unnerved to see a dog snout growing out of what looked like his face.

He wasn't sure if it was an achievement to be liked by a cat that was made of metal. The ones made of fur and bones and sinew had always liked him decently. Still, he pushed this from his mind as he looked at the twins. "So why are we here?" he asked. "Is something going on that I don't know about?"

"Always, Harry, always," Fred said seriously. He checked an ostentatiously orange pocket watch and whistled under his breath. "I would wish you a long happy birthday with lots of pranks and tricks, but we best hurry up. Right now, we're supposed to help you get to the Burrow safely."

Hope trilled in Harry's heart. "I'm going to the Burrow?" he asked excitedly. "Really?" He hadn't been to the Burrow since his fourth year, after all. Harry especially liked the place for all of the magical devices that the Weasleys employed on a day-to-day basis.

Remus cleared his throat. "If we hurry," he said urgently. He touched Harry's shoulder, drawing the young man's attention. "I am going to explain this once, and only once, Harry. You must listen and do everything I say if you want to get to the Burrow safely."

Harry felt that he was ready to do _anything _to see his second home again. Heart hanging from his uvula, he nodded eagerly.

"Wait, wait, wait," George said before Remus could begin. He rummaged in the pocket of his green overcoat and finally withdrew a package. "First, he'll need this. Registration—"

"License," Fred added.

"Some Muggle money—"

"And an _ordinary_ road map," Fred finished, picking up a test tube from out of nowhere and adding a drop of clear liquid. Smoke started to come out of his ears. He waved at it irritably.

Hands trembling, Harry took the package from George and smiled at Tonks, who was staring queerly at the twins. Obviously, she wasn't used to each finishing the other's sentences. Or maybe she just wasn't used to seeing smoke coming out of Fred's ears. "Thanks," he told them. "You were saying?" he asked Remus.

"Tonks here," and Remus laid a hand on the Auror's shoulder, "will be heading back to Privet Drive, as you. She'll collect your things and Apparate to the Burrow, while you head to that way yourself."

Harry's brow crumpled in confusion as he handed the Ducati's keys over to Tonks. "But how am I to get there? They'll be watching the Floo Network for signs of me, remember? I can't Apparate and I don't have a broomstick—Wait, can I Apparate? I-I'm seventeen today!"

But Remus shook his head gravely. "It's too dangerous, unfortunately. You'll be able to train for your Apparation license once you reach the Weasleys'. I do believe Ron is in the process of doing just that. You and Hermione will start lessons this week."

"Oh." Harry looked down at the package so that he wouldn't have to meet Remus's eyes and let the older man see his disappointment about not getting to try the new ability. Carefully, he prised the tape off of it and unwrapped thick brown paper to reveal several cards and some bills. On top was a motorbike license, bearing a solemn picture of him. "Wait," he said. "Does this mean that I'm _driving _to the Burrow?" Struck by an idea, he immediately turned his pocket out and produced the ring of keys he had been given at Gringotts. "On…Sirius's motorbike?"

"The Beast." Remus sighed, probably missing Sirius just as much as Harry was. "We pulled a few strings last year and had it returned to the Impound lot. Hagrid's had it a good few years, but Sirius's will from Azkaban left it to you." When Harry finally looked up, he was surprised to see that Remus had a photograph in his hand. "I had this just lying around at home—it' s a picture of the Beast…so that you'll recognise it."

Harry took it and blinked rapidly several times. The picture had been taken in late afternoon, to judge by the long shadows that fell around four young men clustered around what appeared to be the largest motorbike Harry had ever seen. Sirius was seated on the leather seat, wearing leather boots that went all the way to his knees and a leather jacket to match. James and Remus were each leaning against a handlebar and waving. Stuck off to the side, Peter Pettigrew held up some kind of leather glove and waved as well. Harry felt sick inside, looking at the four who grinned so obliviously back. "Here," Harry told Remus, suddenly aware that even Fred's experiment had gone quiet while he looked at the picture. "It's yours."

"Keep it, I've got the original at home," Remus said. "I'm sorry it doesn't move…Put it in that photo album I've heard so much about." He balled one fist and pushed the side of it against his throat, making a strangled throat-clearing noise. Abruptly, the solemn look was gone and Remus just looked like himself. "Take out the map Fred and George made for you," he instructed.

Harry took out a piece of parchment that was only a little larger than the motorbike license. "Is this it?" he asked uncertainly.

Fred beamed proudly. "Sure is, mate."

"It works just like the Marauder's Map," George told him, and Harry was amused to see that Remus hid a chuckle in a cough. His smile disappeared when his arm throbbed hard once again. Quickly, he shook that out, but the pain only lessened the tiniest of bits. He forced that from his mind. The twins were still going on. "Most brilliant piece of work ever created, Fred and I do believe. Of course—"

"We're being entirely too modest, we know," Fred finished.

"That's right." George took the parchment and tapped it once with my wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he said, and grinned. Nothing happened to the parchment, but George's grin only widened. "No, no, just kidding. What were the words to activate it, again, Fred?"

"'I swear that I need help,' works," Fred told him. "Of course, it may be just a fluke in the spell, but we've discovered that the map is also activated by the word, 'Egg-roll'…"

Remus coughed once again. "That's because that was the last thing one of you had eaten," he told the twins. "I do believe my friends and I managed to activate the Marauder's Map with the words 'Kidney Pie.'"

Muttering, Fred wrote this down on a clipboard that was just sitting off to the side.

"Anyway," George said, "Harry, all you need to do is to tap the map and say either 'Egg-roll' or 'I swear that I need help,' and it should work for you. It tells you exactly the way you need to go, and what you need to do next. Only time it doesn't work—"

"Romantic encounters," Fred filled in.

"And our Mum, naturally. Nothing beats that woman, I swear." George frowned thoughtfully down at the map. "Why don't you give it a try, Harry?" He handed the parchment back.

"Erm, okay." Harry took his wand out of his back pocket and tapped the corner of the parchment once. "Egg-roll." Immediately, spidery lines appeared in every direction from the point his wand had tapped. Bright green words formed, "Messrs. Fred and George Weasley are proud to present, A PERSONAL GUIDE TO LIFE."

"We really do need to rename that," George told Fred. "Frankly, the name stinks."

"An aid," the words continued across the parchment, "to the average bloke down on his luck." Although Harry personally didn't think that he was particularly down on his luck, as his luck had never been all that great, he didn't say anything. He did smile, though, as the words disappeared once more and reformed with, "Hi, I'm Duncan. I'll be your guide today."

"We've programmed Duncan to get you where you need to go," Fred told Harry. "Granted, this is an early prototype of what promises to be our biggest project yet, but it should work. If it doesn't, just call the number on the back and ask for Darryl." There was indeed a phone number on the back of the card. When he turned it over, he was surprised to see that Duncan now read, "HURRY!" in bold letters.

"Guess that settles it, then," Remus said grimly. "Just follow Duncan's instructions, Harry, and you should be at the Burrow by nightfall."

"Here," Fred said, taking something out of his pocket. "We've installed a tracking charm on this, as well as some other charms to monitor you. And don't give me that look, we're not babying you." Despite Harry's scowl, he handed over a silver pendant. It was a disk about the size of the pad on Harry's thumb, bearing an ingrained feather that had been painted red. The Order of the Phoenix amulet, Harry realised as he looked down at it. Fred and George had designed them the year before a tracking beacons—unbreakable charms that the other side couldn't use to their advantage.

"So I'm truly not going back to the Dursleys?" he asked the room as he slipped the pendant on with his free hand. With his other hand, he shook both Fred and George's hands, and then Tonks's.

Remus smiled and shook his hand as well. "You're not going back to your aunt's. Happy birthday."

*

"You're not going back to your sister's."

James Potter had set his jaw long before this comment was made, but now he tensed, ready to duck. This turned out to be the smart thing to do, for Lily Evans looked as though she was perfectly able and willing to throw a punch. Dozens of comments about never annoying a redhead flew to his mind as the green eyes that exerted so much power over him narrowed dangerously. "Oh? And who are you to say I'm not?"

They were sitting in Lily's apartment, both a year and a half out of Hogwarts. The remains of dinner dishes were sitting beside a yellow sign that had been posted on Lily's door, reading in bright red letters that the building had been condemned and that patrons had 30 days to excavate all personal belongings. All leases had been cancelled in light of the event. There had been a Quidditch game on the wireless, but that had been turned off in anticipation of the squall James was expecting from Hurricane Lily. He steeled himself now. "C'mon, Lils, you know that you'll just be miserable there."

It always frustrated James to no end: Lily was the cleverest witch he knew, a genius at Charms, and sensible enough to put up with what his crazy friends put her through. However, she still entertained the misguided notion that her sister would put her up until she could find a new apartment. Somewhere, she had picked up on the idea that her sister didn't hate her as much as she truly did. The notion of unconditional love had stuck with Lily through years of strife, against all reason. Petunia had hated Lily _before _the death of their parents; now, James knew for a fact, she and that awful new husband pretended Lily did not exist.

"I will not!" Lily protested. "Besides, it'll only be a couple of weeks until I can find a new apartment…" She trailed off, eyes drawn to the irrevocability of the eviction notice. "Well, there's not much else I can do, is there? Apartments are hard to come by in the wizarding sector of London."

James looked around at the greying, cracked walls and threadbare furniture. Lily had scrimped and saved in order to afford her very own apartment, and it had amounted to little more than a cubicle with mismatched furniture. The neighbours were loud enough some evenings that Lily had trouble sleeping, and the utilities were only working on a prayer and a few powerful spells. It reminded James strongly of the depiction of a Muggle dormitory on a college campus he had once seen on Lily's television. Still, she was patient and never complained, even though James knew that certain aspects bothered her to no end. "Do any of your friends need a roommate?" he asked desperately now.

Expression glum, Lily shook her head. Any warnings of the tidal wave of anger had dissipated. "Isabelle and Jill are already rooming together, and a third person would just make it even more cramped. Simone's getting married next month to that Russian bloke, and she still lives at home anyway. I figure, Petunia's the only person I have left."

Now James feigned a hurt look. "What am I, chopped liver?" he asked mournfully.

The green eyes narrowed once again. "I can't move in with you. We've been over this before—" 

"Why ever not?" James interrupted, exasperated. "You wouldn't be moving in with _me_. It'd be kind of like the deal I have with Remus. I'll even charge you rent, if you want. In fact…" His voice trailed off as he looked over at her. Anybody could see the gears in his head working from miles away, and anybody who knew him well enough knew what was coming. Moments like these had been donned "James Moments" for a reason. Indeed, James burst out with, "You know what? Sod it all! Marry me and move in with me."

Lily's face was bland as she deadpanned, "If that's your only proposal, I think I'm going to cry."

"Oh, shut up, that was only try number four. And you agreed the first time, so why do I keep saying this?" James looked over at the binder in which Lily had secured most of their tentative wedding plans, even though most of the wizarding world didn't know they were engaged. "If you're worried about this arrangement being ethical, we can just get married next time Sirius is off at the same time as both of us. And you can snag Isabelle as a maid-of-honour—just buy her a cauldron or something."

Although Lily smiled at the suggestion, she still shook her head. "What happened to that grand wedding you've always wanted?" she teased.

Instead of answering, James crossed to the window and opened the dimity curtains Lily had saved up for. Down on the street, he could see several new graduates from Hogwarts skulking on one of the corners, trying not to be obvious as they made a drop. If James were on duty, he wouldn't have hesitated to get at least one of them in for questioning, but right now his fiancée was more important. He looked at the waste-infested sidewalks and scum-covered walls all around. The wizarding sector of London was little more than a slum. "You know what?" he asked, pulling the curtains shut. "Let's drop the pretence of a big wedding. I love you, you love me, we don't need a big, flashy ceremony with people we don't know showing up for the food."

Once again, Lily shook her head. "Only you could put it that tactlessly." She beckoned to him, not really wanting to remove herself from the couch. When James finally sat down, she leaned back against his chest and stared at the wall, thinking. "'Tunia will put up with me 'til the wedding, at least. That's not too long, and she's my only sister, right? She'd have to, wouldn't she?"

James rested his chin atop the locks of fiery ginger. "I don't want a big wedding," he said instead of answering her insecure questions. "I just…I just want you, all right? Most of all, I want you out of this dump. I know you're a capable witch, but…"

That was the thing, Sirius always said, with having two hotheads in one relationship. Very little was actually accomplished when both of them were being stubborn, and stubbornness on the part of one could mean many bad-tempered days of disquiet within the entire group. The pair of them unknowingly held the power to "make or break" the group, as Sirius put it, although it was getting considerably harder to keep the group in good spirits. Between the frighteningly high amount of close scares their group had already had, and the fact that there wasn't really an end in sight, there wasn't much to cheer up anymore.

Right now looked like one of those times that neither was going to give in. "James, it isn't like that! We can't—can't just get up and elope like…like…"

"A couple of runaway teens from the slums?" James filled in for her, tightening his arms around her. He twisted his head to meet her eye. "Why not? My family's flexible, and the only people you've got are that idiotic sister of yours and her ruddy husband. I know I said I wanted a big wedding, but what's the point? We'll get the group together, take pictures, say 'I do,' and be married."

He could see it on Lily's face that she wanted desperately to agree, but something was holding her back. "What about…what about the project?"

"So my godfather's timing is a little off. It won't change anything." James's chin was set stubbornly. "And if it makes _him_ suspicious, _he's _probably already suspicious that we haven't tied the knot. Let's just drop the pretences and elope, all right?"

Lily's expression was no longer resolute. In fact, she looked almost broken, a look that tore at some unnameable part of James's middle. "All right," she agreed softly, not looking at him. "Next weekend. Isabelle will be in town, and Sirius shouldn't have to work." When she did look up, James detected the slightest glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "But _you _have to tell your godfather—and your parents."

"Deal," he said, smiling.

The haunted look flickered across Lily's face once again. "Why does _he _have to ruin everything?" she whispered to nobody in particular. James, having no answer, just wrapped his arms around her more tightly and sighed.

*

The Beast was tucked in between a fancy BMW and what looked to be an American car (the wheel was on the wrong side; crazy Americans) of some type, buried in the back of the Ministry Impound Lot. Finding the lot hadn't been terribly difficult; Harry had only to ask Duncan for directions. The trip had been almost too short, actually.

For one painful moment, he wished Sirius could be there to share the moment. Tonks was already speeding towards Privet Drive.

Remus had explained the trip hurriedly before they had parted at Diagon Alley. Harry was to collect Hermione from a prearranged point, where she had been hiding with her parents for most of the summer, and then the two of them were supposed to head for the Burrow at the fastest speed possible. Hermione's parents had already been whisked off to a tour of the Alps, paid in full by the Ministry of Magic. They believed their daughter to be in America, apparently. Only Arthur and Molly Weasley knew they were coming, for Ron and Ginny were off in Bristol visiting a cousin. They would be returning that evening, as well. Harry certainly looked forward to the reunion.

Right now, however, he was standing in the Ministry Impound Lot, open-mouthed. The Beast, as Remus had called it, was _huge. _Well, huge was a bit of understatements as terms went. "Gargantuan" was actually the word that sprang to mind, and Harry instantly knew that he had spent way too much time around Hermione. "Gargantuan," after all, was not a word that one heard in everyday conversation. Harry quickly shook that from his mind as he admired the gleaming chrome, brightened by the sun pouring down.

"Here you go, Mr. Potter, sir!"

The lot attendant, a wizard not much older than Harry with pimples that reminded him of Stan Shunpike, handed a small card. "Space 731," Harry read off of the card, his brow furrowing until he glanced under the motorbike. Somebody had stencilled the numbers "7-3-1" on the space—it was merely an ordering system so that the Ministry would be able to find the specific automobiles. They probably weren't too familiar with Muggle cars, after all.

"I hear that this belonged to the _real _Sirius Black," the lot attendant said now, obviously admiring the bike as well.

"It very well didn't belong to the fake one," Harry wanted to retort, but said nothing. Instead, he just nodded and selected the silver key that he had shown Remus earlier.

"You sure you're allowed to drive that thing, Mr. Potter?" the attendant asked as Harry inserted the key. "I mean, you _look _seventeen, but…"

Annoyed, Harry fished out the motorbike license the twins had forged for him. He was secretly pleased that they had thought this far ahead. "Proof enough for you, sir?" he asked curtly, irritated. The attendant was starting to remind him of Colin Creevey.

"O-of course, sir. Just show that card to Hank—he's working the gate. Sorry to bother you." And the attendant disappeared so quickly that Harry at first thought he had Apparated.

Shrugging to himself now, Harry swung up onto the bike and tried to reach the pedals. Although he had shot up in the past few years to a reasonable height, his feet came nowhere near the foot-pads. _This puts a damper on things, doesn't it? _his mind commented snidely.

His left arm twitched in reply. _Ruddy arm_.

Hoping that he wouldn't attract the attention of the pesky attendant, Harry leaned forward and tried to stretch out one last time. In doing so, he pressed his left hand against the gas tank and kept his right hand on the handlebar. Just as his chest touched his left hand, a terrible heat speared through his entire left side, wrenching a strangled gasp from him. He sat up in shock—and the pain left.

"Cor!" he sucked in a breath and stared at the offended limb, which looked exactly like his right arm. There was not a mark on him at all. "What on—" He cut off in yet another gasp: his feet had easily come into contact with the foot-pedals. In fact, the bike was perfectly sized now, no longer a huge monster. It looked just like any average motorbike. Harry blinked down at it slowly. Hermione would have some sort of explanation for this…

Hermione!

Harry started up the engine without trouble (apparently, they kept the vehicles on the lot maintained) and zoomed without pause towards the gate. Once he had passed over the card reading "Space 731" to Hank, as the attendant had called him, Harry was free to zoom off into the streets of London. Of course, he only stopped once, and that was to fix Duncan to the space between the handlebars.

*

"Where _is _he?" Hermione asked her guardian for the day, putting down another pair as her cards started smoking.

Remus Lupin regarded the cards on the table, and added two of his own, doubling the pot. "He'll be here. He probably had to stop for petrol."

Hermione had known that Remus was a patient man; she had, after all, spent most of third year sitting through his classes and listening to his lectures. He had lived in Grimmauld Place, as well. He was probably the best Defence Against the Dark Arts professor they had to date, exerting a degree of control that Hermione had seen unmatched in anybody except Harry and Professor Dumbledore, although Harry's control was that of a fledgling finally growing into his wings. After the disaster of his fifth year, that was what Harry needed to find, so his self-control was rigid and unbecoming at the moment. Remus's was much more lax than that, but it still annoyed her. She was, after all, anxious to reunite with the friends that she hadn't seen in a month.

"Isn't that kind of dangerous?" Hermione asked, trying to focus on the pot already spread over the table. The version of Exploding Snap Remus played was from his own days at Hogwarts, and was quite complex compared to the recently revised version. While she knew that she was losing horribly, it helped take her mind off the dangerous ride that she knew was coming. "I mean, him coming all the way alone?"

"He'll be careful," was all Lupin had to say about that. "Your turn."

Trying not to grumble at her mentor's extreme generosity of patience, Hermione selected a card from her hand and placed it on the table. She picked up another from the deck and tried not to wince as the card heated the tips of her fingertips. This hand was doomed to be a terrible one.

Lupin was not done talking. "Besides, I think I know a bit about Harry that you don't."

Hermione's head swung up curiously. She had been friends with Harry since Halloween of their first year, when nothing short of a mountain troll pushed them together. Ron was probably the only person who knew Harry better than she did. It was hard to imagine that somebody knew something about him that they didn't. "Oh?"

"Yes." Remus carefully placed three cards next to the one Hermione had set down. "Wizard or not, Harry's birth wasn't…normal." He paused, mentally assessing what he had to tell her, no doubt. It was hard for Remus not to think before he spoke, Hermione had learned. He wasn't at all like Ron, who was known to blurt things out without really thinking about them. "You see, Lily wasn't ever supposed to have children. Even wizarding cures couldn't fix her—she was as sterile as they came. Your move."

"Are you saying that Lily Potter wasn't Harry's mother?" Hermione questioned, now thoroughly confused. "But doesn't Harry have her eyes?" His parents would always be a sore subject with Harry, but Hermione had heard enough people comment on him to know that the origins of Harry's mysterious eye colour.

"No, no, he does. Don't get me wrong—she _was_ his mother." Remus scratched the back of his head and put way too much interest in studying his cards. "It was a miracle, actually. One day, she couldn't get pregnant—and then there was Harry, loud and fussy though he was. One can say that Harry almost wasn't meant to exist."

"So he's a Wish-Baby?" Hermione asked slowly, her brow furrowing. "I've read about them, but they're supposed to be incredibly rare. When a witch or a wizard can't have babies, but they have one nonetheless because Wish-Magic makes it possible?" Remus nodded. "Wow. That's rough."

"Harry seems to be perfectly fine…wait, what do you mean by that?" Remus actually glanced up from his cards to look at her suspiciously.

Hermione cleared her throat nervously. "I mean, it's highly unlikely for any Wish-Babies to find… well, erm, true love, as it goes." She said this in a rush and continued hurriedly, "Of course, that's based heavily on several theories which run a little too closely to Divination for my taste, but…"

Remus interrupted her with a head-shake. "Will you move already? My cards are smoking."

"So is he?" Hermione asked even as she collected three cards from the pot, unable to lay any down. Immediately, her hand cooled down, providing pain relief to heated fingers. "A Wish-Baby, I mean?"

Remus flinched, but that might have just been from his cards, which were now smoking quite heavily. "That was certainly Sirius's theory. James would never say exactly. He was pretty quiet when it came to Harry—except for the day he was born, of course. Got sloshed proper. In fact, we all did." His eyes clouded over for the briefest of moments.

Hermione had personally never understood the strange habits of men and drinking, but she was hardly going to criticise a professor (even though he insisted that he was a retired professor, if anything) for his past. Instead, she watched him lay two cards down, carefully pondering what to say next. "But what if he _is_? That would explain a lot, wouldn't it? I mean, how he defeated Voldemort as a baby, and then why he keeps surviving. I mean, he's almost like a Weeble."

"A…a what?" Remus, for the first time Hermione remembered, looked quite lost. "I'm sorry, I could have sworn you said a…a _Weeble_?"

Hermione actually giggled, remembering the rift between wizarding and Muggle worlds. "Yes, that's exactly what I said. Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down." When she could hardly bear to keep Lupin in the dark any longer, Hermione giggled again and explained that Weebles were a children's toy for Muggles. She had owned one as a child—it had been a gift from an American uncle. "The base, you see," she said as she laid two cards on the table, "is really heavy so that even if the toy falls over completely, it has no choice but to overbalance again and stand up properly. Of course, the base is also rounded so that it wobbles about rather amusingly."

Remus gave her a slightly worried look. "I really have to wonder about Muggles these days," he said at length. "I still don't understand how Harry's being a Wish-Baby makes him a Weeble, also…"

Hermione sighed. "It's just the way that Weebles bounce back, Remus. It's an expression. My uncle uses it."

"Oh."

The grandfather clock in the hallway tolled four o'clock, making Hermione jump. Even though she and her parents had stayed in the safe-house for over a month, it still didn't make her used to that wretched clock. "So," she said, trying to distract herself, "how does Harry being a Wish-Baby make you sure that he'll make it here safely?"

Before Remus could even hope to answer her question, there was a loud pattern of knocks from the entrance hallway to the small safehouse. "That's Harry," Remus said, relief written over all of his features. "One minute!" He hastily stood up and hurried out of the room, leaving Hermione to her confused contemplation. Why had Remus avoided her question like that?

*

Harry stood on the doorstep of the house, which looked not at all unlike any of the houses on Privet Drive, and tried not to fidget nervously. Although his calves and toes were numb from the vibrations of the Beast, he was actually quite jumpy. He hadn't seen Hermione since the end of sixth year, after all. What if she wasn't there? What if Voldemort had got here before Harry managed to? Hermione was one of the only people he could still trust at Hogwarts. She had been part of the D. A. from the beginning, not to mention one of Harry's best friends. Hermione just had to be there.

"One minute!" came a male voice from inside, and Harry froze. He knew that Hermione's parents had left for the Alps earlier that day, so that couldn't be her father. What if this was a trap? He reached for his wand, but before he could even get a grasp on the wood, the door was flung open by none other than his old Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.

"Remus!" Harry said, quite surprised. "I thought you were back in Diagon Alley!" He stepped inside when Remus held open the door for him, and looked around at the prim, ordinary decorations. This was a safe house, so he knew that there wouldn't be pictures of family and whatnot that usually crowded entrance halls. Still, the rather boring water-colour paintings of different fields startled him. He couldn't imagine Hermione living in a place that was so much less than stimulating.

"My main job today is to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Hermione and I have been playing cards while we waited." Remus nodded to show that Harry should follow him, and took off down another hallway, this one covered with the same style of paintings. That led into a plainly average kitchen, complete with a table, Hermione, and a deck of smoking cards. "Safe and sound, just like I promised you, Hermione."

"Harry!" Hermione sprang up from her chair and wrapped Harry in a quick hug that nonetheless made him tense up. "I was worried! What took so long?"

Harry gave her a shrug, trying not to let his grin destroy his face. "Stopped for petrol." Why Remus would give Hermione a "Told you so" look, he was not sure. Still, Duncan had insisted before he entered the house that they did not have much time, so he cleared his throat. "Are you ready to go? I'm kind of anxious to get to the Burrow."

Hermione seemed to brighten at the thought of going to the Burrow, just like Ron had always brightened at the thought of bothering Hermione after Quidditch practice. "I've got all my stuff right here!" And then she disappeared from the room so quickly, Harry had at first thought that she had Apparated. She reappeared instants later, dragging behind her a trunk that had be filled with new schoolbooks. "Remus says that he is going to fly my trunk to the Burrow while we take the more conventional route," she informed Harry quickly.

Harry turned to Remus, one eyebrow raised. "Is it a race, then?"

A spirit of the old Remus showed in the ex-professor's grin. "If it is, then may the best man win. First, however, I need you to help me carry the trunk out the backyard. I need to disillusion it." Obligingly, Harry grabbed one end of the trunk and hauled it out what he supposed was the back door. Remus took very little time in changing the trunk. As Harry watched, he pulled an Invisibility Cloak out of his pocket and pulled that on over his head. "Tonks and I took the liberty of borrowing this. You'll get it back at the Burrow."

"I don't mind," Harry said, finding it to be true. "Don't hit any sparrows on your way out." With that, and a wave towards where he supposed Remus to be, he headed back into the house. "Let's go," he told Hermione in the kitchen. "We've got a long way to go, and not that much time to do it in."

"Okay," she said brightly, and followed him out of the front door.


	4. Unforeseen

Disclaimer: You know the drill. I'm not JKR. I'll never be as famous as JKR. You see that writing below? It's not hers. It's not making any money. It's not serving for anything more than a pastime of a very bored writer. So don't sue me.

Please.

A/N: Sadly enough, my mother's making me update. I've got up to chapter eight written, but I was taking a hiatus from this story to finish The Garnet Snitch_. Oh, well. Looks like that's over. Enjoy!_

Somebody told me

That this is the place

Where everything's better

And everything's safe

Walk on the Ocean by _Toad the Wet Sprocket_

Chapter Three: Unforeseen

"So, is it easy?" Hermione asked conversationally as Harry handed her a burger. She nodded her thanks and worked at unwrapping the silver paper from the food.

Harry looked bemused. "Is what easy?" he asked as he tore the wrapper off of his own burger. He shook his left arm as it gave a slightly painful throb and bit into his burger with heavy anticipation. He hadn't eaten anything since the Leaky Cauldron, after all.

"Driving the motorbike, of course." Hermione gave her best friend a strange look. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed the fact that he was barely chewing on the burger, his thoughts obviously focused otherwise. When Harry got like this, it could hardly mean anything good. "Harry, are you feeling okay? You've been distracted all day."

Harry gave a very noticeable jerk. "Sorry—a bit tired," he mumbled into his burger. Swallowing, he said, "It's pretty easy, actually. Just takes a bit getting used to—want a go?" He gestured toward the window of the dingy fast food restaurant they had stopped in. Outside, the Beast gleamed even in the dusky light, a beauty of chrome and black. Even Hermione, who had never particularly admired anything with a motor, had to agree that the Beast was a fine bike.

"No, no, I'm fine with you driving. I was just curious."

They had been driving for days, it seemed to Hermione, although she knew it to be no more than a few hours. Her calves and feet had long gone numb, shaken to death by the bike itself, and her face felt quite greasy from all of the air that had been billowing into it all day. It had been at her request that they stop for at least a small bite to eat, and now they were sitting in the corner booth of some nameless restaurant that bore the words "Cheap Food!" in garishly bright letters on the massive front window. They were far from being the only patrons in there, but the number of people waiting impatiently for food, or grimacing food down, gave them a sense of security. Safety in numbers, Hermione would have called it.

"So how far are we from the Burrow?" Hermione asked, trying not to wince as she ate a pickle slice on the burger.

Harry checked the card that the twins had given him—Duncan, Hermione remembered. "About an hour, tops?" he guessed. "Maybe half an hour. Duncan's being tricky again."

Hermione personally thought that anything the twins made was destined to be dodgy, but she was hardly going to say anything. Duncan had so far guided them through the maze of back roads that the area had to offer, keeping them perfectly on the map that the twins had designed to throw any suspicious characters. It would have been quicker to go through on the M3, but Duncan had been absolutely insistent that they go _his _way.

They finished their burgers in silence, with Harry occasionally pausing to rub his arm or shoulder. When they were done, Hermione cleared the trash from the table while Harry headed outside to start the bike up. The aftertaste of the burger made her pull a face as she headed into the cooled evening air. Outside, Harry was sitting on the bike, but he had yet to start it up. Instead, he was looking up at the sky, where the first stars were beginning to show. As Hermione approached, he shook his arm and reached for the ignition.

Hermione stood beside the bike while she waited for Harry to start it up. "What's wrong with your arm?"

Harry didn't look at her; he was too focused on getting the engine to catch. "It's nothing, just a twitch," he grunted. "Ah, there it goes." The engine finally caught and immediately began purring sweetly, as though it had never been contrary. Hermione just rolled her eyes at his diversion, intent on questioning him later. Right now, Harry blinked an excited green gaze at her. "Hop on—I can't wait to get there."

Just as Hermione swung her leg over the seat, a blur of black sped across the edge of her vision. Before she could even think about it, her fingers were wrapped around her wand. Her eyes scanned the car park, but she saw nothing, aside from the dusty vehicles belonging to the patrons inside the fast food restaurant. "Harry, something's up," she hissed, knowing that he would hear her even with the engine. "I think I saw something—wand out."

In one fluid motion, Harry's wand appeared in his right hand, still clutching the handlebars. "What did you see?" he muttered back.

"Something—I don't know. Just get out of here." Hermione checked nervously over her shoulder, but could see nothing but an old Cooper Mini. "I'm probably jumping at shadows anyway…"

"No, no, you're not." Harry slowly wheeled the bike backwards, to where they could pull out from the car park unheeded. "Hold tight, I'm getting us out of here." After Hermione had obediently clutched his midsection, Harry jumped the bike once and kicked off. There was a loud "HEY! _Inpedimenta_!" behind them, but the hex missed. Harry pushed harder on the gas, cutting across a lane of busy traffic to avoid any more hexes.

Hermione looked behind them, but could see no Death Eaters in the fast food car park. Instead, all she saw was three men, dressed in crisp grey robes with some sort of logo on the left breast of each robe. By the time she could even think to study the logo and try to remember it, Harry had already zoomed down the road, and the restaurant was out of sight.

Ron was just unpacking his briefcase, a rather shabby affair that he had inherited from his Uncle Bilius, when the commanding shout from his mother shot up several flights of stairs. "Ronald Weasley! Get down here _now_!"

Groaning, Ron closed the suitcase again and crossed to the door. Why did the woman have to call him off of each task for every little thing? She probably wanted him to do something silly, like de-gnome the garden before bed. Shouldn't he be doing something more important, like playing Quidditch? Ron gave another almighty groan at the thought of de-gnoming the garden. Kid-stuff, he would have called it, had he been in the mood to talk. He was seventeen, for heaven's sake. And yet, he was still answering at the every beck and call of his mother.

"Yes, Mum?" he called back after he had passed Ginny's room. The door was closed and probably locked. Ginny had had about as much fun in Bristol as he had, so no doubt she wanted to be alone. The trip had almost been an utter disaster. Under his breath, Ron muttered, "What do you want _now_?"

Molly Weasley was standing in the kitchen, with a wooden spoon in one hand and a wand in the other. The hand containing the wooden spoon was up near her shoulder, and the spoon stuck out at a precarious angle. When Ron sauntered into the kitchen, she looked up from the cookbook she had been perched over. "Oh, there you are, dear. I thought you had gone outside."

Ron tried not to roll his eyes. Hadn't she heard him call back? He shoot a longing glance at the last rays of sunlight that were filtering dusky hues through the kitchen shutters. Instead of wasting time with Tyrone, his layabout of a cousin in Brighton, he could have been practising from the upcoming Quidditch season, where he was desperately hoping to shine. After all, he and Harry were the only seventh-years on the team, and Harry was already famous, but Ron had _Keeper _talent. Talent that, as Harry told it after a couple of butterbeers, was raw and untapped. Ron had the makings of a great Quidditch player deep inside, if Harry's boasts were to be believed.

"Would you go check to see if Dad left that thing of petrol in the shed? I've been meaning to try a few things with it. Hurry up," she said to Ron, who was slouching now. "Be quick about it—I don't like you out after sunrise."

"I'm _seventeen_," Ron pointed out, but he made sure that his steps across the kitchen were fast enough for Molly's approval. Once he was out of view of the kitchen's only window, however, he slowed his pace. The late afternoon air was perfect for a lazy stroll, and besides, he was exhausted from a week long of excruciatingly boring sightseeing. Tyrone was just like his father: fascinated with Muggles. He had talked without stopping for an entire week, making Ginny's and Ron's heads spin as he led them from one sight to another. Although Ron had particularly liked the day that they had spent on the beach, he was still quite a bit red, and now his skin was starting to peel. He wrinkled his nose as he ran his hand along the top tier of the wooden fence that ran along the path to the shed.

The shed was actually a favourite place of his, although he would never admit that aloud. Being the youngest son, Ron had always been fascinated with what his dad did, even if his dad only worked with Muggles. There was a great number of interesting objects in the rickety shed, boxy things and brightly coloured contraptions alike that Ron could stare at and tinker with for hours. He subconsciously stepped around the mop-bucket ("Look!" Arthur had cried after he brought it home, beaming, when Ron was seven. "It has a thing on it to wring out the mop! And it's not even magic!") and scanned his eyes along the shelves, looking for the bright red container of petrol.

Before he found it, however, his eyes stopped on something else. It was another object that Arthur had dragged home from work. Ron remembered that day; he had just turned eleven, about to start at Hogwarts, and his father had come in, excited like a new puppy with his toy. All of his brothers were still at Hogwarts, about to come home. They had got hours of use out of it, too, before the miniature car had just stopped working one day. Ron had been heartbroken, but even that hadn't allowed Arthur to fix it.

"I can't work magic on it, son," he'd said as the two sat at the kitchen table, poking and prodding the racy little car and its control box. "That's breaking the rules." He looked sad even as he picked up the car. "I'd better take this out to my shed, then." From there, Ron had only seen glimpses of the beloved toy sitting on the shelf in his dad's shed. Right now, he rubbed some of the dust off of the front fender and moved along, looking for the petrol container.

The bright red bucket was pushed into a dusty corner. Grunting heavily, Ron tugged it from its resting place and started to haul it down the lane, back to the house. About halfway there, he gave up on "a manly display" and grabbed up his wand, neatly swishing the petrol into the house. He made motions to put it on the table, but Molly screeched, "Don't put it there—I just scrubbed that!"

Grumbling under his breath, Ron waved his wand and set the cartridge on the floor. Without a word, he turned and headed toward the stairs.

A rumble from outside the Burrow made him pause, one foot on the steps. "Mum, do you hear that?" He craned his neck to look for the source of the noise, automatically fearing the worst, but all that he could see were the last rays from the dying sun. Nothing seemed to be thundering up the dirt road that led to the Burrow, so he shrugged and jogged up the steps.

Ginny had opened her door and was peering out onto the landing outside her room, her hair in a towel and a bathrobe tied on over her shorts and old T-shirt. She had stopped sleeping in a night gown, Ron noticed. The freckles that had multiplied after her time in the sun were white with exhaustion and she blinked tiredly at him. "I was almost asleep—but I thought I heard something."

Ron gave her a shrug. "Can't imagine what it could be. I didn't see anything outside when I looked." He peered at her face. "You okay, Gin?"

"F-f-fine," Ginny said through a yawn. "Soon as I figure out what that noise is, I'm going to kip." Pushing past him, she headed down the stairs, leaving a befuddled Ron behind. He frowned at her retreating back and then turned to continue the ascent to his room. He still had to unpack, after all, and check to see if Tyrone had scratched the broom that had become Ron's pride and joy.

Although he still flew the broomstick he had been given for becoming a Prefect, he chose only to fly that during Quidditch games. Otherwise, he flew the broom that he and his friends had spent all year designing. Madam Hooch had been throwing out old school brooms because the Ministry had donated several decent Comet 260's. On a random trip around the school, he and Harry had each snagged one of the trashed brooms. They took a second trip to fetch a broom for Hermione, determined to keep her in on the project. Any spare moments they had were spent stripping the brooms of old charms, and pestering Hermione until she aided them in finding better charms to patch up the brooms.

Now the broom, which Hermione had jokingly called Breakneck III (the name had stuck, and now each owned a Breakneck), lay on Ron's bed, a bare prototype. They had used several spells and potions to make the wood more supple, and several smoothing charms to make it more aerodynamic. Harry had been the official test pilot, as he was the best on a broomstick. With his feel for the motions, they were able to tweak the balance until it was almost perfectly aligned to that of the Firebolt (Hermione had changed it slightly, to avoid any hassles with copyright). Ron had done most of the math and had done a lot of research on different broom prototypes.

The fact that they had created a broomstick that balanced almost better than an international standard racing broom still boggled Ron. He had known that both Hermione and Harry were destined for greatness, for entirely different reasons, but he had never known that he held the same thing inside of him. After all, wasn't his fifth year nearly a disaster? And now here he was, the main inspiration for one of the best brooms to ever hit Hogwarts.

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?" Harry asked when Ron had mentioned his doubts to Harry. "I mean, being an inventor must run in your family, too. Look at your dad and the twins." Ron had nodded sullenly, a bit depressed to be thrown back under the shadow of his family. "Though," Harry had continued unknowingly, "I think that yours is so much better. Anybody can charm a car to fly! But a broomstick? That's…that's pure genius." And then he had clapped Ron on the shoulder and had used Ron's shock to get a head start in a race that he lost anyway.

So while Harry tested the brooms and Hermione brewed potions and occasionally helped him out with the equations involved, Ron struggled to achieve the perfect broomstick for both Keeper and Seeker. He knew every niche and cranny in his broomstick by now, knew how it felt in his hands as he soared from point to point, aimed and determined to keep that Quaffle out of those hoops. There was nothing more familiar than the grooves near the front that allowed a sturdier grip, or the slight jerk that let him know that he wasn't flying in a straight line…

"Professor!" he heard Ginny gasp downstairs.

Ron strained his ears for the reply of, "I'm hardly that, Ginny." before bolting down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. As Ron's legs had got a lot longer since the time he had plummeted down three flights of stairs (only to bounce at the bottom, to his mother's relief), he made it to the ground floor in record time. "Remus!"

Although still grey and careworn, Remus smiled at him. The wizard was wind-tousled and pulling some kind of trunk behind him. "I'm confused," Ron said before Remus could even begin a greeting. "Are you coming to stay with us or something?" He looked from Remus to Ginny, but the tired girl's expression was as puzzled as he felt.

Now Remus's smile turned cryptic. "You'll see," he said, and left it at that. "Could you help an old man with this trunk, though?" Although Remus looked ages older than most of the people he knew, save Dumbledore, Ron knew that he was younger than Arthur and just older than Bill. The two manoeuvred the trunk into an open space beside the hearth in the den with very little effort. Once the trunk (which bore no identification, Ron noticed) was secure, Remus straightened and dusted off his hands. "Is your mum home?"

Molly swept into the room, beaming. "You made it!" she said, and pulled Remus into a firm hug. "Arthur was worried—I got an owl from Amos telling me that they had to forcibly restrain him from visiting the Scrying Room more than necessary. Come, come, I've just made tea."

Remus allowed himself to be pulled from the room. "I hope you've made a lot," Ron heard him say as the two adults left Ron and Ginny to go into the kitchen.

Ginny immediately crouched by the trunk, running one finger along the edge. "That's odd," she said, eyebrows furrowing. "I'm sorry, but I imagined that Remus's trunk would be a lot…well, erm…shabbier." She leaned forward, getting a closer look. "But it _has_ got claw marks."

"Wait." Ron's head snapped to the right, his eyes narrowing on the front door. "Do you hear that?"

"The rumbling?" Ginny stood up and looked at the front door as well. "It's been going on for quite some time." She unwrapped the towel from her hair, letting the wet locks slide onto the shoulders of the old T-shirt. Ron was pleased to see that it was one of his old Chudley Cannons T-shirts.

The rumbling was definitely getting louder, as though something very dangerous and large was getting closer and closer to the house. Swapping a nervous look with Ginny, Ron drew his wand from his pocket and started stepping cautiously toward the front door. Keeping behind the wall, he poked his head around the door, but saw nothing in the darkening evening. "Stay here," he told Ginny. "You're not allowed to work magic yet."

Although Ginny looked as though she definitely wanted to protest, she bit her lip and nodded once. Stealthy as a shadow, Ron slipped through the front door and crossed the front porch in two quiet paces, dropping easily into the bushes. It was a tactic he'd used to avoid the twins before, after all.

_Crack!_

Stealth, as well as dignity, flew out the window as Ron yelled and dropped his wand, immediately spinning around and putting up two fists. A pair of yellow eyes stared at him balefully, daring him to attack. Glaring back, Ron grumbled under his breath and collected his wand. "Fat lot of good I'd do up against a dark wizard if the first thing I do is drop my wand," he muttered. "Go on! Get! Lousy cat!"

Crookshanks gave his master's boyfriend a pessimistic hiss and hurried across the porch, bushy tail flicking behind him. Ron watched the cat go with self-disgust written on every feature. If his own humiliation wasn't bad enough, Ginny hadn't been listening to his orders. "Fighting the big bad dark wizards for me, Ron?" she asked teasingly, coming out on the porch. She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle, for the night was slowly becoming chilly. "How sweet. Hey, what's that?"

Ron straightened out of the bushes and squinted. "Looks like a headlight," he observed after a minute. "Why would we have a car come visit us here?"

"Not only that—a car with only one headlight?" Ginny's eyes followed the light's progress down the dirt road, definitely coming up to the Burrow. "That explains that noises we've been hearing."

Ron wiped his jeans off with his hand, still trying to cover the embarrassing incident in the bushes. He couldn't believe he'd been tricked into lying in ambush for a bloody car! And that cat… "Loud car," he snorted, as the engine revved. He turned to go inside, but Ginny suddenly gripped his arm. "What?"

Ginny's eyes were distant, as though she were looking at something he could not see. Lately, Ron had felt like that a lot, like perhaps Ginny could see a lot of things that he couldn't. He shrugged this feeling off, or tried to, as she tugged twice on the arm she was holding. "It's Harry and Hermione!" Her voice had dropped in urgency. "Quick—hurry up!"

Ron needed no further prompting. Long legs churning, he jumped from the porch and landed halfway across the yard. He could hear Ginny's snort of giggles behind him, followed by, "No accidental magic, Ron!" Ron ignored her; he had unconsciously been using magic to aid his jumps for years. He sprinted down the path that led to the road and skidded around the curve, sneakers leaving dust.

The engine cut off just as he sprinted into view. Sitting in front of him, riding what appeared to be a very large bicycle covered with huge chrome plates that gleamed in the expiring sunlight, was his best mate and his girl. They were just climbing off of the contraption as Ron bellowed, "Blimey! What _is_ that thing?!"

* * *

"Why, it's a motorbike, of course." Sirius Black beamed proudly at the gigantic object he had just rolled out of the tiny backyard of his new flat. "It's quite probably _the _best thing on this side of the Atlantic. Sure, it's an American bike, but…"

James leaned over to closely inspect the "Harley-Davidson" logo that sat on the main body of the motorbike, pushing his glasses up his nose. "A Road King?" he read, quite puzzled. "Not only did you buy a Muggle bike, but you bought an _American _Muggle bike?!" He readjusted his glasses once again, as he often did when flustered, and blinked mulishly at his best friend.

Sirius, obviously unaware of James's current state of shock, beamed proudly. "Isn't she a beauty, though?" He ran a loving hand down the leather seat and moved it up along the handlebars, which had obviously been hit with a polishing charm. "I've got a lot of plans in store for this baby."

A loud throat-clearing noise reminded both young men of the presence of a third Marauder. Remus Lupin was leaning against the front door post, arms crossed and expression inwardly amused. Although he already had a few grey hairs, he looked fresh, his face scrubbed and red from the early October cold. The nice robes that he wore were a tribute to the fact that he had just arrived at Sirius's flat for a job interview. Looking at him, James felt a pang in his stomach. Just that morning, he had heard of a new werewolf legislature that was being written up in the International Confederation of Wizards. Things would be very rough for the young werewolf in the next couple of months.

Right now, however, Remus would remain oblivious. He sauntered away from the post now, crouching to inspect the motorbike. "It's a good bike," he observed after a minute. "However, you_ are_ aware that enchanting Muggle artefacts is against the law?"

The fourth Marauder snorted. "So's becoming an illegal Animagus." At eighteen, Peter Pettigrew was slowly growing out of the babyish chunkiness that had pestered him all the way through Hogwarts, but he was always be short and stocky. He had just landed a job as a clerk in the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, so the others saw less of him than usual. It had taken some wrangling for him to join the others for Sirius's unveiling of his greatest mystery. "Of course, creating a sentient map of Hogwarts is, also. What _haven't_ we done that's illegal?"

Sirius was still admiring his new bike. "We haven't killed anyone."

James's expression turned dark. "We came close."

Before tension could rip through the air, Remus cleared his throat again and touched a finger to the Road King. "What are you going to name her? A bike like this, well, she's got to have a name." He looked frankly admiring, as he usually was of Sirius's newest ploy (especially one so great as this). "Can you even drive her?"

"Can I drive her?" Sirius sounded so deeply offended that one would think Remus had driven a sword through him. "Moony, have you no faith in me? Of course I can—with my eyes closed! As a matter of fact, why don't you have the first ride?" He looked positively ecstatic at the opportunity to show off his new toy. "You'll be the first Marauder besides me to ride on my 1959 Road King." He swung onto the bike easily and started it with a jump, grinning at the beastly roar. "My little beast!" he called to James and Peter. "C'mon, Moony!"

Looking understandably apprehensive, Remus clambered onto the bike with considerably less grace. Sirius, after all, still held the title for "Best Famous Last Words" for a stunt pulled in fourth year. "It's entirely safe," he'd said to James. "I checked it myself! Tied the knots, spelled them for the right people…" Even with Sirius's reassurances, the four boys had been hanging in mid-air, in their boxers, when the rest of the school had come in for breakfast.

The engine roared and heckled as the bike, carrying half of the faithful Marauding crew, sped from sight. James waved at it, laughing, and turned to Peter, grinning. "Never could sit still, could he?"

Peter was watching the bike go as well, one hand shading his eyes. "First a bike, what's next?" he asked rather morosely. "Where on earth would he get a Muggle bike? I mean, I know Padfoot is smart, but you know the kind of family he grew up in! It couldn't have been easy!"

"Since when has Padfoot shied away from something because it's hard?" James asked derisively. He checked his watch and sighed. "C'mon, Wormtail, let's go inside and loot his kitchen." He jumped the hedge between the driveway and the front door, stepping into Sirius's house without a second thought. The wards were taught to recognise him, and besides, he had stayed here several times. Somehow, the jokes about his being in the dog-house whenever he was forced to stay with Sirius would never get old, especially not to Peter.

"So how's work?" Peter asked as they entered the minuscule kitchenette.

James unscrewed the cap to a bottle of Toxic Butterbeer and poured two glasses, after making sure that the glasses were clean. Sirius, after all, wasn't known for his cleaning skills. Usually, Lily came in once or twice a month out of pity and cleaned the house for him. Now James peered at the kitchen counters, trying to figure out whether she'd visited lately or not. "Work's fine," he said bemusedly. "It could be worse, I mean. What with all of the stuff happening with Voldemort," and his expression darkened, "we've been up to our necks in paperwork."

"Haven't we all." Although he flinched, as he was prone to do, at James's use of Voldemort's name, Peter took the butterbeer from his friend and downed most of it unabashedly. Sirius had whole cases of the expired brand of butterbeer in his spare bedroom, all from an accidental meeting and some crafty summoning spells. When the Three Broomsticks had stopped selling Toxic Butterbeer, Sirius had merely summoned the unused cases to the spare bedroom. If the taste was a little off, it was good enough for getting drunk quickly that the young honestly did not have a problem. James replaced the bottle in the fridge now and nursed his own cup. "So, how's Lily, then?"

This brought a half-smile to James's face. "She's a lot better, actually." As he always did whenever he was talking about Lily, he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. The normally-fiery witch had fallen into a depression of sorts after the deaths of her parents, so the group was constantly inquiring about her. "I still think that the eloping was really what she needed. 'Course, it was pure genius of you to throw us that reception."

Peter's grin glowed with an inner light from the praise. "Hey, what're friends for?" The reception, he had to admit, was probably his most brilliant idea. It had taken some serious co-ordinating, but the trio of Marauders had managed to get all of James and Lily's friends together in one room for a surprise reception when the two were supposed to return from eloping. Peter and Sirius had spent most of the reception convincing Lily that James had had nothing to do with the reception. "So she's okay, then? We in the clear?"

James took an over-large swig of butterbeer. "I can't wait until you get married, Wormtail."

Now Peter's grin turned confused. "What do you mean by _that_?" he demanded, eyebrows lowering. James was prone to make cryptic comments like this, and they always left Peter feeling as though he was sitting in the dust behind James's fast-paced life.

"There's no such thing as 'in the clear' once you're married." James shook his head, highly amused. "Right now, I'm safe 'cos Lily's at Simone's bridal party or whatever it is they're calling it now."

"A wedding shower, perhaps?" said a new voice, and the heads of both men swivelled guiltily at the sight of the short, red-headed witch posed in the doorway, one eyebrow arched and her expression suspicious. "And what was that you were saying, James?"

"'Lo, Lily," Peter said, grinning at James. His grin practically screamed, "You're in for it now, mate!" James gave him a dirty look before turning to his wife. Even Peter could see that the wheels in his head were spinning faster than any racing broom. Peter, meanwhile, was intent to at least help his friend out of that situation. "You got out of your, er, wedding shower rather early."

"Simone took the girls out for a couple of drinks. I wasn't interested—most of them are her new sisters-in-law and they're loud and obnoxious. Plus, they like vodka." Wrinkling her nose, Lily gave a half-shrug and crossed the kitchen. Her expression was slightly perverse, but she kissed James's cheek anyway. "By the way, I'll let you get away with it _this _time," she teased on her way to the fridge.

Peter coughed, although James thought that his cough sounded suspiciously like "Whipped!"

James seemed to have recovered the ability to articulate. "Not that it isn't a pleasant surprise, but what are you doing _here_, then?"

"She came with me," said yet another new voice. Although Peter jumped at the sight of Taurus Crockford standing in Sirius's tiny kitchen, James just raised an eyebrow. "Afternoon, James, Peter."

"Tuck?" James demanded, highly surprised to see his godfather's co-worker and best mate. Don Kempworth, James's godfather, generally kept very odd company, but James rather liked the eccentric old Tuck Crockford. Right now, however, he had a score to settle. "You haven't been hitting on my woman, have you?"

Tuck eyed Lily and shook his head. "Were she forty years older," he said in a mockingly mournful tone, and received a joking whack in the arm from James.

Lily rolled her eyes at the three of them. "Men, so possessive." James hid his smile when he saw that she had drawn her wand and was muttering cleaning charms to get rid of the clutter in Sirius's kitchen. If Lily didn't stop by out of pity, Sirius would be living in quite the pig-sty. Not that he was usually here to enjoy it, though, James thought as he shifted restlessly. When he wasn't training out in the field, Sirius would be working on his new motorbike, or visiting any of his friends. Lily and James kept a room in the Potter Manor for Sirius for the nights that he came to visit and couldn't Apparate home because he'd drunk too much.

Now Lily looked up from the charms and fixed James with such a look that he felt everything down to his toes go cold. However, she didn't have bad news. "I actually ran into Tuck on my way through London, James." Her voice was purposely light.

"Have you talked to my godfather lately?" James asked, eyes flicking from Lily to Tuck. He had understood the silent words conveyed in Lily's tone. "How is good old Don doing?"

Tuck removed the small, pointed cap he wore. "Don's doing wonderful. Still working on that project with me—we've made some real progress."

Now James's voice was neutral. "Real progress? Oh, good. Surely you'll come over to dinner tomorrow night, and bring Don? I understand that he's fond of Lily's rather famous ravioli." Really, he knew that the effusive old man was fond of any sort of cooking whatsoever, but ravioli was Peter's least favourite food. The young man wouldn't invite himself over then. "We haven't talked about the project in awhile."

"No, we haven't." Tuck's own expression was bemused as he looked about Sirius's kitchen. "You really should teach him some cleaning charms of his own, Lily. Might do him some good." With a wink to Peter and James, he pushed his cap back onto his head. "Thank you for the dinner invitation. You can expect us at half-past six tomorrow. Pass on my regards to Sirius." Without any further good-bye, he Apparated from the tiny flat.

Peter blinked. "I thought Padfoot had anti-Apparation wards up!" he said, looking confused.

"Must have them down for the day," James lied easily, a guilty feeling squirming around in his stomach as he reached for the bottle of Toxic Butterbeer in the fridge. "You know how lackadaisical Sirius can get about this place when he's been on assignment." That was an utter lie; after assignments, Sirius usually warded his flat with several nasty curses and hexes, all the result of so many years spent pranking at Hogwarts. Too many times, James had said a wrong word and had had to go to Lily to get elephant ears or an aardvark nose removed.

He felt Lily's eyes on him and turned, one eyebrow raised. "You _are_ making ravioli tomorrow night, right?"

"As long as you haven't forgot that Isabelle and her new beaux are coming over for lunch," Lily said just as pointedly.

"Gosh," Peter moaned, stealing the bottle from James. He poured himself a hefty amount and picked up the glass, leaving the bottle from James. "You two are so—"

"Together?" suggested a familiar voice from the doorway, and Sirius came striding into his own kitchen. "Thanks, Prongs." Without warning, he snatched up James's glass and downed the contents. "My bike broke down about a block away—Moony and I had to push it."

Somehow, James thought, given Remus's uncanny strength, he suspected that Sirius had done less pushing than he boasted. Indeed, Remus came into the room a minute later, pushing sweaty hair out of his face. Out of sympathy, James grabbed three more glasses from the cabinet and poured them all a round. "I still don't know how you all can drink this stuff as much as you do," Lily said, wrinkling her nose at the taste. "It's a bit off."

"Wedding shower get out early or something?" Sirius asked her, an eyebrow raised. He had taken to memorising most everybody's schedules, and that included Lily. He had often had to remind her husband, who could be rather paranoid when he worked himself up to it, of where she was.

"You could say that." Lily flinched at the taste of the Toxic Butterbeer, but downed the rest of her glass anyway. It was common knowledge that she could drink James under the table without really trying, but the two had managed to avoid excessive drinking as of late. When Peter had pestered the pair about it, Lily had laughed and said, "Always the risk of getting pregnant, you know," leaving a very green Peter behind.

Sirius had just laughed at the thought of a Prongs Junior. Of course, he and Remus had then spent an hour plotting the age at which "baby Prongs" would receive his first broomstick and then what sort of mischief he would get up to during his first week at Hogwarts. This fun had been stopped by Lily, who had wisely stepped in and reminded the pair that as far as the couple knew, there was no Prongs Junior, and what if Prongs Junior turned out to be a girl?

"We'd have to call her Prongs-ette," Sirius had said without flickering an eyelash. "Either that, or little Lily."

Lily's aggravated response was that no child of hers would have the misfortune of being named after a flower.

"So, why'd the bike break?" Peter asked conversationally, turning to their friend. At the moment, they could only see the bottom half of Sirius, for he had managed to fit his head, arms, and upper torso into a cabinet in a desperate search for snacks. "Just the normal Muggle problem?"

"Muggle problem?" James asked mildly, trying to see over his friend's shoulders in hopes of good snack food.

"Yeah—you know—how things are always breaking. Engines and stuff." Peter shrugged and became quite enamoured with his drink, possibly embarrassed that he had insulted Lily's heritage.

She, however, had her eyes narrowed on Sirius, who remained obliviously in the cabinet. James winced in sympathy for his best friend; what was coming surely had to be painful. "Wait a minute—by bike do you mean _motor_bike or bicycle?"

Sirius retracted from the cabinet so quickly that James always swore that he had Apparated. "Uh, erm, er…"

"It's a Harley-Davidson 1959 Road King," James told his wife proudly, glad that he had remembered the official name. The dirty look Sirius shot him now promised him that while James was gaining brownie points with his wife, he was clearly losing favour with his best friend.

James's grin widened. He wasn't above wanting to see Sirius squirm just a little.

Remus, being the only person unafraid of Lily, decided to stick up for Sirius. "Oh, come on, Lily, it was perfectly safe," he said.

* * *

"Perfectly safe? Perfectly safe?!" Molly Weasley spun round angrily, nearly upsetting the kettle from the stove, where it was bubbling merrily, completely unaware of the tense atmosphere in the Burrow's tiny kitchen. "Remus, I know that you're a sensible man, but this time you've gone too far! Letting two seventeen-year-olds—who've never driven before—alone on English roads, on an ancient American motorbike belonging to an escaped convict is not just dangerous, it's not dangerous—it's downright foolhardy!"

The lines at the corners of Remus Lupin's mouth whitened at the thought of facing down this fireball of a woman. This was especially noticeable to Ron, Hermione, Harry, and Ginny, who were sitting at the table, eating in a rather subdued manner. They had spent the past few summers memorising the expressions on the faces of the adults in their lives, and this look of stolid fear was unfortunately quite common. Ron and Hermione kept locking eyes and sharing secret smiles when they thought nobody was looking, and Ginny was playing with her food, too unsettled by the fact that her mother was yelling at her old professor to eat much. Harry was just too tired to do much besides lift his fork from his plate to his mouth, but he kept his eyes on Remus.

Molly slammed a frying pan into the kitchen sink, sending an explosion of water everywhere. "Forget Death Eaters and Dementors! Just throw him on a motorbike and let him blow himself up!"

"The motorbike, I might remind you, belongs to Harry," Remus said, seeing his opportunity to speak in the dead silence. Harry's fork had stopped halfway to his mouth, and it quavered suspiciously. Hermione and Ron, recognising that Harry's anger was closer to the surface than it had been all day, exchanged a nervous look. "And it was safer to keep him away from all magical transport on today of all days, Molly. You know what the seventeenth birthday means—it's a wizard's most vulnerable day!"

"Magic doesn't work the way it's supposed to all of the time," Hermione whispered to Harry, hoping to head off an angry explosion. "Tomorrow, you'll have grown fully into your mature powers, but it's always a bit awkward on your seventeenth birthday."

"But a motorbike, Remus?" Molly was saying as Harry turned his attention away from Hermione. "You have no idea where that thing's been—he's never driven before—what if the Death Eaters had caught him unawares?"

Hermione and Harry locked eyes, each silently agreeing not to tell the adults about the near-attack at the fast food restaurant. They didn't need to worry anybody over that. Ron looked up from his stewed carrots and gave the pair of them a queer look. One eyebrow raised; he obviously knew that they were hiding something, and would interrogate them about it. Harry gave him a desperate look that screamed "Later!" in bold letters, and Ron finally nodded. Hastily, the youngest Weasley son stood up. "Great dinner, Mum," he said quickly, interrupting the argument. "I'm off to bed. You coming, Harry?"

Harry looked longingly at the food that was still left on his plate. "Give me a minute," he decided. "This shepherd's pie is too good to resist."

Ron's head swivelled to look at his girlfriend. Hermione cleared her throat and climbed to her feet. "I think I'll call it an early evening, too," she said, and Harry wondered if any of those in the room actually believed her. He certainly didn't. "Walk me up, Ron?"

The two disappeared from the room without another word, leaving Harry and Ginny with Molly and Remus. Harry sneaked a look at Ginny and was a bit surprised to see her playing listlessly with her food. The youngest Weasley usually had something to add to every conversation, a fact that had become more obvious over the past couple of years. Ginny was talkative, but she was nowhere near the annoyance that Colin Creevey managed to be on many different occasions. Harry's brow furrowed as he noticed the exhaustion in her pale features.

"—Should give the motorbike back, that's what he should do!"

Now Harry sat up with a jerk. "Give it back to _whom_?" he demanded, incensed. For some strange reason, he thought of the rather annoying attendant at the Ministry Impound Lot. "The last owner's dead! Giving it to the Ministry would just be stupid—they'd just scrap it! Besides, it's _my _bike. Sirius left it to _me_! And that bike's all I have left of him!" The words came out before he could stop them, but afterwards they seemed to hang there, obvious and open.

Reality seemed to shatter around him as he sat at that dinner table, incensed over a petty disagreement over a motorbike, of all things. Harry felt as though he had been glued to his seat, and that his shoes had been cemented to the floor. The fork in his hand was quivering madly; his body seemed distant and disconnected, almost leaden in a sort of way that puzzled him. It felt like there was cotton inside of his head, between his ears and eyes. Everything was strangely blurry and random. He wasn't angry, he knew; upset maybe, but never angry. So why was he reacting like this?

Remus and Molly weren't moving, Harry noticed in that strange disconnection from his body. Only Ginny was able to move much, and she was doing so very slowly. But her eyes locked with his anyway, slowly bringing out horror and disbelief. It was like his heart had accelerated and taken the rest of his body with it, but was leaving the world behind. Subconsciously, his hands flew up to his chest, clutching the skin over his heart. Later, he would notice bright red splotches that his fingertips had left behind there. Right now, he was too busy trying to work his mouth and demand help from anybody in the room.

But Remus and Molly had even moved, Harry had collapsed right out of his chair.


End file.
